Pay and working time: Towards organization-based systems?

The decentralization of pay and working-time determination has widely been seen as marking a shift to organization-based arrangements. Empirical inves tigation has been limited, however. This paper examines the process and out comes of pay and working time through a survey of over three hundred workpl aces in four important sectors:printing, engineering, retail and health. It finds that a strong sector effect is demonstrated whether or not there are national arrangements in place, and that employers tend to move like ships in a convoy when managing change. It is argued that the convergence and du rability of existing arrangements is associated first with the structural b oundaries provided by markets, technology and labour; second with the incre ased importance of legitimacy in a context of growing uncertainty; and thir d as a result of shared information sources and networks. The strength of t he sectoral reference raises significant questions for much of current orga nizational research, notably its focus on levels of pay and the relevance o f the analytical distinction between the internal and external labour marke ts. The research also has a number of important policy implications, drawin g attention to the pros as well as cons of co-ordination in pay and working -time arrangements.