Jouko Nätti1 Timo Anttila2 Tomi Oinas2, Armi Hartikainen2
1
University of Tampere, School of Social Science and Humanities
University of Jyväskylä, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy
Email: jouko.natti@uta.fi
2
Adjustment of companies to the economic recession from the perspective of European
managers
The aim of the paper is to examine the adjustment of companies to the recent economic crises
with a European company survey data, which was carried during the economic recession in
2009. The research questions are: (1) What kind of structural changes occurred in different
establishments (mergers, change of staff)? (2) What kind of flexibility practices (internal and
external, numerical, functional and financial) were carried out in different establishments? (3)
How did the managers evaluate the problems of Human Resource Management (recruitment
difficulties, high labour turnover, low motivation, high absenteeism and sickness absence), and
the perceived company performance in different establishments? Establishments were classified
on the basis of the economic sector (production, private and public services). In addition, we
were interested in the differences between the Nordic countries in a European context.
European company survey (ECS 2009) is a large-scale representative survey addressed to
managers and employee representatives examining the different flexibility practices of firms, the
social dialogue at the workplace, the problems of Human Resource Management and the
perceived company performance, and carried by the Eurofound. ECS 2009 covered 30 countries.
The interviews were carried out by computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) in 27,160
establishments. The analysis was based on multivariate (analysis of covariance) methods by
which we can separate the main and interaction effects (country and sector) and control various
covariates (gender and skill structure of the staff, size of the establishment, foreign ownership,
trade union presence).
Preliminary results indicate that various structural, staffing and operational changes were most
common in the Nordic countries. Structural changes (like mergers) were also typical to the
private establishments, while operational changes (in wages, work organisation, working time,
restructuring) were more typical to the public sector. In most countries staff cuts were most
common in production and private services except Finland and Sweden, where staff decreased
more in the public than in the private services. Flexibility strategies were also most common in
the Nordic countries besides with Continental and the UK, while the differences between sectors
were minor. One reason for the high flexibility in the Nordic countries is that also variations of
the workload were most common in the Nordic countries. In perceived company performance
indicators (economic situation, labour productivity and its change) there were large variations
between countries and sectors. Public sector managers were more critical, especially in the
Nordic countries compared to the private sector managers. Finally, personnel related problems
were most common in Denmark, Finland, and Continental countries. All in all, there seemed to
be a lot of similarities between the Nordic countries. Nordic companies used to a large extent
various structural, staff and operational changes and different flexibility strategies.