Doing the right thing? An institutional perspective on responsible restructuring in UK local government

Abstract

Drawing on institutional theory, this paper advances understanding of how restructuring practices are shaped by the organisational and institutional context and the concerns for legitimacy. Longitudinal case study findings from UK local government suggest a pattern of incremental deviance where repeated cutbacks are legitimised through a narrative of continuous improvement. This results in increased labour flexibility, work intensity and managerialism within services. We argue that the lack of resistance to change can be explained by the steady desensitisation of workers to repeated cutbacks as opposed to the inherent fairness of management actions. Through context‐specific research the theoretical and empirical distinctions between responsible and pure restructuring, and soft and hard Human Resource Management policies, are challenged.

City regions and decent work: Politics, pluralism and policy making in Greater Manchester

“…This entrepreneurial municipalism at city region level (Thompson et al, 2020) is underpinned by pragmatic municipalism at local authority level whereby (mostly) Labour controlled, but cash-strapped, councils attempt to anchor local economies through their investment decisions and judicious use of planning and procurement rules. At the same time, Labour party political control in and of itself has not prevented large scale job losses and restructuring within local government since 2010 (Johnson and Watt, 2022).…”

Human resource management in recession: Restructuring and alternatives to downsizing in times of crisis

“…Empirically, by exploring how and why firms respond to recession at the organisational level it offers rare empirical insight into the ‘black box’ of employment restructuring (Cook et al., 2016; McLachlan et al., 2021), and responds to calls for more contextualised studies of HRM (Cooke, 2018; Vincent et al., 2020). Conceptually, the paper contributes to ongoing debates in this journal regarding HRM in recession (Teague & Roche, 2014), downsizing (Cregan et al., 2021; Goyer et al., 2016; Harney et al., 2018; Muñoz‐Bullón & Sanchez‐Bueno, 2014), and employment restructuring (Johnson and Mathews, 2022; McLachlan et al., 2020). Finally, the study offers timely insights for HR policy and practice in times of great economic, social and political instability.…”

“…Concerns with job retention and responsible restructuring have attracted increasing international policy and academic attention, especially after the 2008 global financial crisis (Ahlstrand, 2010; Bergström, 2007, ; EC, 2012; Hansen, 2009; Johnson & Watt, 2022; McLachlan et al., 2021; Tsai & Shih, 2013; Tsai & Yen, 2020), and the global impact of COVID‐19 on employment has reignited the debate (Spencer et al., 2022; Stuart et al., 2021). However, strategies approximating to employment stabilisation and responsible restructuring are thought to be more common in the coordinated market economies of Germanic European nations, where the institutional and regulatory environment discourages a narrow short‐term focus on dismissals, and traditions of social partnership encourage cooperation and social dialogue regarding less harmful restructuring approaches (Bergström, 2007; ILO, 2014; Wood & Brewster, 2021).…”