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Necessary and sufficient factors in employee downsizing? A qualitative comparative analysis of lay‐offs in France and the UK, 2008–2013
Author(s) -
Goyer Michel,
Clark Ian,
Bhankaraully Shabneez
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
human resource management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.44
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1748-8583
pISSN - 0954-5395
DOI - 10.1111/1748-8583.12101
Subject(s) - causation , qualitative comparative analysis , argument (complex analysis) , corporate governance , scale (ratio) , business , institutional theory , public economics , economics , political science , management , finance , computer science , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , law
Embedded in the literature on financialization and institutional approaches, this study is an examination of the causal factors of employee downsizing in two institutionally dissimilar settings, France and the UK, using the fuzzy sets variant of Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The findings show that the roughly equivalent use of large‐scale lay‐offs in the two countries is coupled with strikingly different causal factors. Our argument suggests the importance of complex causation whereby employee downsizing reflects the growing influence of financial considerations in the governance of companies, but its diffusion across countries is shaped by different configurations of institutional arrangements.