HRM policy, competence requirements for jobs and vocational education and
training. German organizations put the emphasis on extensive vocational
training for most of the employees and positions, continuous development of
vertically differentiated qualifications (further education courses building on
more basic ones and occupational practice), and stability and autonomy of
people in their jobs, within a fairly tight and coherent overall scheme. French
organizations emphasized learning by hierarchical advancement, qualification
and career distinctions, upward mobility and restriction of autonomy, all
within a complex and centralized scheme. British organizations were more
loosely coupled amalgamations of components, each with its own identity and
displaying a number of status, career and qualification differences between
them, but held together by generalist management.
Similar and related differences have tended to crop up time and again,
whenever organizations in similar situations were compared in the three coun-
tries (Lane, 1989). These attest to sizeable contrasts in the way European coun-
tries train people, organize units, pay employees, set up work careers and labor
markets, and so on, although the nature of the task in hand is fairly similar.
Such comparisons also showed that people working in organizations had dif-
ferent ideas about what kind of arrangement was ‘natural’, self-evident or ideal.
Germans seemed to appreciate professional autonomy in a well-oiled, produc-
tive machine. British employees appeared to strive for individual and group
prerogatives, and the possibility of negotiated compromise between different
interests. The French invariably seemed to go for detailed and complex
schemes that permitted sizeable inequalities while allowing extensive upward
mobility and fixed individual rights while buttressing the exercise of authority.
Such differences are even more striking when European and Asian organi-
zational and HRM policies and practices are compared. A case in point is the
124 International Human Resource ManagementOverall view of administrative structures of production plants in the UK, Germany and France
Low Medium High
Tallness of hierarchy D UK F
Functional differentiation D UK F
Share of white-collar employees D UK F
Supervisory span of control D UK F
Administrative and commercial personnel/workers D UK F
Authority positions/workers UK D F
Authority positions/white-collar workers UK F D
D, Germany; F, France; UK, United Kingdom.TABLE 5.1