Reciprocal interdependence between dimensions
The first central tenet of the approach is that characteristics of any of the four
dimensions mentioned above are related to specific, parallel characteristics of
every other dimension. This means that specific patterns of work organization
and enterprise structures are linked with specific patterns of human resource
generation, of industrial and sectoral structures, and of industrial relations.
What happens in one dimension has implications for what happens in the
others. If a society, for instance, shows a tendency to deepen the hierarchical
differentiation of enterprises, there will be a related differentiation with regard
to human resources and in industrial relations structures, and it will also be
related to the importance of concentrated industries in that society. The impli-
cation is that such characteristics are specific to a society, and the identity of
the society is constituted through stable couplings of characteristics across the
dimensions mentioned.
This is the more static aspect of the approach, or the ‘comparative statics’
as Whitley would call them, meaning that any feature and change on one
dimension will be linked with those features and changes on other dimensions
that the typology and its inherent statements about association predicts. Such
comparative statics summarize features and associations that are relatively
stable over time. If work is organized in a particular way, this will be interdepen-
dent with related human resources, industrial-sectoral and industrial relations
patterns. Note that it is not a one-way determination or causality which is
implied, but rather a reciprocal interdependence between dimensions of social, eco-
nomic and political life. It has been suggested that, for instance, vocational
education and training patterns ‘explain’ organizational characteristics. But
this is not the way the approach should be understood. Its proponents insist
on interdependence rather than dependence.
Complementarity of opposites
The second basic tenet deals with the actor–systems interdependency men-
tioned above: actors reproduce characteristics on any dimension of society, and
the interrelations between such dimensions. This happens because structural
properties and rules of the game, that is, the ‘systems’ properties, tend to load
the individual ‘choices’ that actors make in a specific way. It also happens
because the actors learn to see particular ‘choices’ as generally favorable, and
develop a specific ‘programming of the mind’. The emphasis is on the inter-
active relationship between systems characteristics and mental programming.
As we can see, this establishes a link with culture. We now see institutions
created, modified or held in place through the mental programming of actors;
and we also see the latter as emerging through the confrontation of actors with
fairly stable and robust patterns.
Note that the interactive relationship between actors and systems may be
marked by both correspondence and opposition: faced with hierarchical organi-
zationpatterns, the actors may learn to internalize corresponding assumptions
Cross-national Differences in Human Resources 133