Private equity buyouts, work and employment relations
Guest Editors: Mike Wright (Nottingham University) and Geoffrey Wood (University of Sheffield)
The special issue will explore new approaches and perspectives on the effects of private equity buyouts on the employment contract and work organization. There is a considerable debate about the implications of private equity buyouts for employees. Yet, the existing theoretical literature is somewhat fragmented and existing empirical evidence is mixed. Much of the agency-based finance literature depicts the relationship between owner and employee rights as a zero-sum game; by reasserting owner rights, employees will inevitably lose, but this will enhance organizational performance. A cognitive based perspective suggests that private equity transactions enable managers and employees to have greater discretion to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities, while a resource-based view suggests that private equity deals may be associated with the introduction of high commitment HRM practices that facilitate the realization of firm growth. Relationship orientated institutional approaches would see a change in ownership regime as having adverse effects on existing complementarities regarding employees, with unforeseen consequences for firm performance. The regulationist literature sees particular modes of economic activity as assuming importance at specific times and places. It has variously been argued that financialization driven activity (with private equity being but one example) represents a coherent growth regime, or an incoherent series of experiments arising from the challenges and opportunities created by persistent economic crisis. These debates are taking place in a range of contexts both across Europe and North America. They emphasize the implications of private equity for both Anglo-American market economies and economies that have traditionally had greater collaboration between the social partners.
The special issue is a timely attempt to bring together alternative theoretical traditions and empirical work focusing on the consequences of varying forms of private equity investments in different national contexts.
We invite papers that provide high quality research to extend our knowledge of the impact of private equity buyouts on the employment contract and work organization Papers can be from different theoretical perspectives and use different empirical methods, such as case studies, large scale survey work and archival databases, but must constitute fresh work, that genuinely advances existing debates.
Suggested research questions that contributors might address are:
- Theorizing private equity, work and employment – alternative accounts.
- The varying effects of different forms of private equity on employees.
- Private equity and the organizational life-cycle: different effects on work and employment at different times?
- Private equity in different national contexts: agent for the infusion of liberal market HRM techniques into collaborative markets?
- Private equity and sustainability: the employment and wider organizational consequences.
- The effect of private equity on workplace commitment and the ‘social contract’.
Papers on related issues not explicitly listed above are also welcome.
Contributors should note:
- This call is open and competitive, and the submitted papers will be blind reviewed in the normal way.
- Submitted papers must be based on original material not under consideration by any other journal or outlet.
- The editors will select five papers to be included in the special issue, but other papers submitted in this process may be published in other issues of the journal.
The deadline for submissions is 31 July 2008. The special issue is intended for publication in early 2010.
Papers to be considered for this special issue should be submitted online via www.humanrelationsjournal.org. Please direct questions about the submission process, or any administrative matter, to Claire Castle at editorial@humanrelationsjournal.org.
The guest editors of the special issue are very happy to discuss initial ideas for papers, and can be contacted directly:
Mike Wright
mike.wright@nottingham.ac.uk
Geoff Wood
g.t.wood@sheffield.ac.uk
