*ETUI-Sigurt Vitols 62 results

"The book provides a comprehensive, comparative treatment of the development of New Investment Funds (NIFs)—private equity, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds—and their impact upon labour and employment. Several countries are selected for in-depth treatment with a chapter devoted to each: US, UK, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Poland, and Japan. The book examines variations in the level and type of fund activity between countries, considers influences upon these variations, and analyses differences in the impact of these funds on labour and employment. This analysis is located in a broader discussion of the nature and development of corporate financialization and comparative capitalism. Financialization has supported the development and growth of these funds, and many aspects of these funds exemplify the process of financialization.
Each chapter reports the evidence on the impact of these funds on labour and employment. Case studies conducted by the authors supplement other evidence. Much of the evidence shows that private equity funds can have adverse effects on labour, such as reductions in employment, but there is also evidence of more positive effects in some cases such as employment growth and adoption of high commitment human resource practices. There is much less evidence on the effects of activist HFs and SWFs, with the impact on labour typically being indirect.
Between them, the chapters show that variations in national regulation have a significant impact on both the development of fund activities and their effects. With regard to labour effects, employment and labour regulations do not seem to be of prime importance in explaining the level of fund activity, but regulation supporting worker consultation and voice affects the capacity of labour representatives to influence the outcomes of fund activity on labour and employment."

"Should companies primarily serve the interests of shareholders, or are they responsible to a broader set of stakeholders, including their own workers? The financial crisis has exposed the deficits of the current regulatory framework for companies, as it prioritizes short-term shareholder value at the expense of the long-term interests of stakeholders.
In this book, members of the GOODCORP network of researchers and trade unionists present their proposals for European company law which would encourage companies to follow sustainable, stakeholder-oriented strategies. Key proposals include: revising our understanding of the firm and its key stakeholders; strengthening stakeholder ‘voice' in companies; increasing the transparency of companies through binding requirements for social and environmental reporting; and negotiating employee-friendly agreements with investors through collective bargaining.
This book follows up on The Sustainable Company: a new approach to corporate governance (published by the ETUI in 2011 and edited by Vitols and Kluge), which outlined GOODCORP's vision of an alternative to the shareholder value orientation of the current system of corporate governance. "

"Is worker participation becoming more prominent or less? Furthermore, what is the impact of worker participation on economic performance? This article introduces a tool designed by researchers at the ETUI to help answer these questions: the European Participation Index (EPI), a country-level summary measure of the strength of workers' voice in companies. The EPI is based on (i) union density and collective bargaining coverage, (ii) workplace representation and (iii) board-level representation. This multi-level index provides an alternative to existing cross-national measures by taking into consideration two levels at which worker participation can take place: the workplace and the board. The article shows first that worker participation has become less prevalent in the EU over the past decade; and second that the EPI is robust and has superior explanatory power in relation to income inequality compared with traditional measures of collective bargaining."

"This book presents the results of a study of workers' rights during company takeover situations in Europe. Takeovers are extremely important for workers because a change in ownership frequently leads to restructuring in the firm, including replacement of management, changed working conditions, increased work intensity and/or mass redundancies. It is therefore crucial that workers have strong rights to receive timely and full information about the planned takeover and to intervene at an early stage of the takeover process to protect their interests. The major conclusion of the book is that the EU Takeover Bids Directive needs to be revised, as it does not provide an adequate level of workers' rights in its current form.



The study was carried out by the ETUI's GOODCORP network of academic and trade union experts on corporate governance and company law. The book includes case studies of takeovers as well as analyses of national legal frameworks regulating takeovers and of transversal issues related to takeovers. The book is the first in a new ETUI book series on workers' rights in company law."

"Wirkungen der Mitbestimmung für die Corporate Governance nachhaltiger Unternehmen. Mitbestimmungsförderung Report, Nr. 22. Düsseldorf 2016
Der neu entwickelte Mitbestimmungsindex "MB-ix" misst die Verankerung der Mitbestimmung in Unternehmen auf einer Skala zwischen 0 und 100. Erste Ergebnisse zeigen: Die durchschnittliche Verankerung der Mitbestimmung ist vor allem in kleinen und/oder auf Hochtechnologie ausgerichteten Unternehmen weitaus geringer als in den großen und mittelgroßen sowie technologisch breiter aufgestellten Konzernen."