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This chapter analyses the management of pay and performance in the case study companies, against the background of the embedded systems of the USA and the host countries. Both wage classifications and the issue of performance management are examined. Patterns of decision-making on both dimensions are found to be generally more centralized than is the case for other areas of HR policy. On the issue of wage classifications, patterns of broadbanding are examined, as well as the means by which US multinationals challenge sectorally-based pay determination in Germany. It then explores the issue of forms of individual and collective performance pay, looking at recent changes in the nature of merit pay, particularly the increasingly competitive nature of its allocation through mechanisms, such as forced distributions. It also reviews the extent to which performance management is used as a tool to ‘cull’ weaker performers, and suggests that the origins of such policies can be related to the societally-specific norm of ‘employment at will’.

This chapter discusses the protection and nurturing of managerial supervisors, given the problem of employment instability in the human services. It discusses employment-at-will, whistleblowers, and trade unionism for professionals. It concludes with suggestions for organizational supports of management and staff in this challenging time.

Chapter 5 describes the principle of continuity, also called the principle of “stability” or “permanence,” in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. The principle presumes employment contracts of indefinite duration where employers must provide cause to terminate the contract. The chapter describes how continuity provides judges and other adjudicators with the authority to protect workers against unfair dismissal, reinforce employer obligations despite contract modification and successorship, and reform precarious contracts into standard contracts of employment. The chapter then describes the uneven and weaker presence of continuity in the United States due to employment at will. It argues that employment at will needs to be derogated by statute, likely state by state. But despite the need to derogate employment at will, the chapter also underscores that about 15 percent of the U.S. workforce, that one employed in the public sector and in the unionized private sector, is not covered by employment at will. Moreover, even under employment at will, many private sector employees are covered by antidiscrimination, antiretaliation, tort, and public policies that together concoct a law of wrongful dismissal. Hence, while weak and uneven, some form of employment stability does pervade in the United States.

This chapter examines the existence of internal labor markets at ConflictCo, looking at flexible scheduling in this workplace regime. While workers at PartnershipCo experienced little employment insecurity, this was not the case at ConflictCo. It was clear that workers at ConflictCo were highly fearful of losing their jobs. This was a consequence of ConflictCo's internal state, which made use of “at-will employment,” meaning that there was no redundancy policy, and managers were free to decide themselves which workers to keep on. Those who lost their jobs received no redundancy pay or notice. There was, therefore, a great deal of employment insecurity among the informants. If flexible discipline is found to be central to the operation of control at ConflictCo, despite the availability of traditional forms of discipline, then it significantly strengthens the case that this is a vital feature of workplace regimes in the twenty-first century.