Downsizing

M@n@gement, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1999, 263-286 Special Issue: organisational Downsizing Alternatives To Organizational Downsizing: A German Case Study Cornelia Kothen . William McKinley . Andreas Georg Scherer Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Department of focussing Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Department of Management telecommunicate: decline@siu.edu Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Department of Management eMail: scherer@wiso.uni-erlangen.de In the past few years, a new curl of downsizing has been observed. This wave began during the economic recession of the early mid-nineties and has continued during the subsequent years of economic growth. While the espoused mark of this wave of downsizing is to reduce costs and increase competitiveness, trial-and-error research raises doubts about whether these goals have actually been achieved. Downsizing may also have serious negative consequences for the employees who lose their jobs, for their families, and for the employees who be the restructuring process. Despite these outcomes, downsizing appears to have become institutionalized among executives as a taken-forgranted way of managing organizations. The cognitive rigidity that this suggests makes it important to demonstrate alternatives to corporate downsizing.

The Volkswagen (VW) Company is an important example of such an alternative, because of its progressive policy of preserving employment in Germany. This paper describes the genesis and executing of that personnel policy, showing that discontinuities in the corporate environment do not always have to be dealt with by agency of mass layoffs. Profits and social responsibility do not necessarily have to be competing goals, but can sometimes be jointly accomodated by using appropriate humane resource management programs. INTRODUCTION The reasons provided for the restructuring of German industry have echoed those offered for restructuring in other advanced industrialized countries. The discourse of globalization (Spich,... If you unavoidableness to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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