Regulatory authorities, politicians and trade unions across Europe have recently accused private equity institutions of improving the performance of buy-outs merely by reducing employment costs with negative implications for jobs, working conditions and training investments. These claims are assessed by analysing high commitment management practices and changes in these practices in privateequity backed and non-private equity backed buy-outs in the UK and the Netherlands using a large-scale representative sample that combines both questionnaire and archival data. We find that both private equity backed buy-outs compared to non-private equity backed buy-outs, and Dutch buy-outs compared to UK buy-outs, are less likely to report introducing new high commitment management practices but do not on average reduce high commitment management practices. The findings suggest private equity backed buy-outs represent only a limited adaptation of the European social model. K E Y WO R D Sbuy-outs comparative study corporate governance human resources and industrial relations ownership change private equity

Researchers and potential investors in transition economies need to understand the Human Resource Management (HRM) strategies of target firms, since human resources are arguably their most valuable assets. Understanding is difficult, however, because HRM strategies help to determine firms' performance, but are in turn influenced by corporate governance, particularly insider ownership. This paper employs a structural equation modeling methodology to examine the relations between governance, HRM strategies and performance in the context of a novel dataset of Ukrainian industrial firms. It is found that insider ownership is positively associated with high-commitment HRM strategies and negatively with low-commitment, cost-cutting HRM strategies. Cost-cutting HRM strategies are in turn associated with weaker firm performance. These outcomes correspond broadly with theoretical expectations. Journal of International Business Studies (2003) 34, 530–549; doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400065

This paper reports the findings from a survey of the effects of management buyouts on human resource management (HRM). Buyouts resulted in increased employment, the adoption of new reward systems, and expanded employee involvement. These developments support the resource-based view that buyouts develop internal assets over agency theory predictions that managers will adopt a cost reduction approach. The type of buyout influences the subsequent development of HRM. Buyouts report more commitment-orientated employment policies where employees own shares, and where the buyout pursues a 'buy and build' corporate strategy and adopts a business strategy of enhancing customer service and developing markets. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2004.

This study represents the first enterprise level analysis of the determinants of exporting in transitional economies, and focuses on privatised manufacturing firms in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Employing models developed from the existing literature on enterprise-level trade, results derived from longitudinal data suggest that the most important influences on a firm's decision to export are company size and the non-monotonic, curvilinear influence of managerial ownership and control. Comparisons are made with studies of less developed countries.Enterprise-Level Analysis, Transitional Economies, Exports, Trade,

Effective property rights protection plays a fundamental role in promoting economic performance. Yet measurement problems make the relationship between property rights and entrepreneurship an ambiguous issue. As an advancement on previous research in this paper we propose a new approach to the evaluation of the security of property rights based on direct measures that overcomes some limitations of previous studies. We apply this new metrics to a survey of manufacturing firms in Russia to identifying the economic effects associated with the lack of property protection in a transition economy. Our analysis supports the view that there is a close relationship between institutions, property rights and economic growth. Our findings confirm that redistributive risks provide a depressing effect on investment and innovative activity of manufacturing enterprises and potentially result in a huge loss in efficiency and economic growth, which in other institutional settings could have been avoided.