3 AN INSTITUTIONALIST INTERPRETATION OF
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES AND HRM
Let us consider the institutionalist empirical fundamental concept that
emerges from cross-national comparisons, and let us begin by the organization
of production units. First, only those comparisons are pertinent here which
highlight differences that cannot be attributed to different goals, contexts,
environments or strategies of enterprises. Our interest is focused on differences
that cannot be attributed to common explanatory variables in organization
theory, such as technology, firm size, products made, innovation rates, vari-
ability of products made, ownership, etc. Intriguing differences are those which
arise despite similarities in the factors just mentioned. In which ways do actors
and systems differ, even when the organizations are of the same size and make
the same product, with the same technology, for similar types of clients?
Primary and secondary production processes comparedThe following emerged when the administrative structures of manufacturing
sites that are similar regarding size, technology etc. were compared in three
countries – France, the UK and Germany. Table 5.1 summarizes a number of
quantitative measures describing the shape of organizations. The data were first
published by Maurice et al. (1980), reformulated by Lane (1989: 51), and refor-
mulated again by the present author. Interestingly enough, although the mate-
rial is far from recent, subsequent comparative studies controlling for size,
technology, strategy and other task environment or contextual properties, have
not changed the picture (Maurice and Sorge, 2000). Whilst organizational
change has of course occurred, differences between countries have proven
rather robust.
Most of the variables are expressed as percentages, ratios or index values.
The differences between the countries were usually in the order of 10–20 per-
centage points, which is quite a lot, bearing in mind that we are dealing with
organizations that do basically the same thing. German sites came across as
having laterally ‘lean’ and structurally simple designs, the hierarchy being strong
but flat. There was a tendency to restrict the growth of any component that is
separate from direct production and the line of authority. French organizations
tended to have tall hierarchies with large numbers of people in managerial,
supervisory, administrative and specialist positions. British firms tended to have
medium-sized components on most counts, except that they had the smallest
numbers of people specifically classified as having line authority.
Such differences went hand in hand with striking contrasts in labor con-
trol, management control, payment systems, industrial relations, work careers,
Cross-national Differences in Human Resources 123