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AbstractIndependent India's new state-owned infrastructural industries were not only entrusted with the mission of producing essential public commodities, but they were also required to promote the economic and social advancement of their workforces. To achieve this objective, big public enterprises in particular, helped by the financial power they derived from their control over the strategic sectors of the domestic economy, established generously endowed welfare programmes. This article argues that such a developmental ideology shaping managerial policy orientations is central to understanding why accepted explanations for the rationale of employer-sponsored social benefits are insufficient when it comes to studying similar initiatives in the Indian public sector. To substantiate its argument, the article explores the provisioning of social needs over a period of roughly half a century (1948–2002) at a large state-run producer of telecommunications equipment, Indian Telephone Industries. The welfare regime as it evolved here boasted one unique feature: it rested on dual foundations, with both the company and the trade union assuming independent responsibility for the well-being of employees. A range of informal self-help schemes devised by workers further supplemented the institutionalized social security net set up by the management and the union. The article also discusses how the firm sought to scale back its largesse in the aftermath of economic liberalization.

India's policymakers justified the introduction of neoliberal economic reforms by advancing one of the main grounds that it would help optimise the performance of state-controlled enterprises. This article argues, on the contrary, that the reform process had an extremely deleterious effect on these enterprises' operations. Based on a detailed ethno-historical case study of ITI, a large public sector manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, the article highlights the contradictory nature of neoliberalisation. Even as public sector companies were exposed to new rules of competition, they continued to be subjected to a web of bureaucratic constraints. The article then proceeds to contest the official narrative of the transition from a command economy to a market economy as a gradualist and pain-free process. For public sector managers and workers, in fact, the rupture with the past proved to be a precipitous and fairly violent experience. The article concludes by examining a key strategic measure adopted by the ITI management to enable it to adjust to the changed business climate, voluntary retirement and workers' responses to this scheme.

Work, conceptualised as a concrete and practical activity, continues to remain an under-explored problematic in the field of Indian labour studies. The neglect of ethnographic research techniques could perhaps account for this shortcoming. Based on non-participant observation in a public sector company, this article examines the practices and attitudes of workers specialised in assembling printed circuit boards for electronic telephones. Despite the standardised nature of the product and its low economic value, operatives allocated to this task experience a significant degree of autonomy in their daily activities. In consonance with their personal inclinations and interests, they are not only free to structure their immediate physical environment but also to control their work pace and organise the way they perform their jobs. In all these spheres of practice, important variations can be observed from one individual to the next. This situation belies the conventional thesis equating semi-skilled occupations of the kind described here with job fragmentation, the absence of individual discretion and stringent managerial controls. The departure from the norm stems in part from the desire to preserve a harmonious industrial relations climate and in part from the non-strategic character of the end product—telephones—in the company's portfolio. But slack disciplinary controls, a problem common to state-owned enterprises in general, could also explain the latitude granted to workers.

The article discusses the impact of organizational configurations on employees' training capabilities. Inspired by the capability approach, it uses qualitative data to question under what organizational conditions firms in France provide their employees with the opportunities and means to participate not just in training programmes, but in those programmes they have reason to value. The results suggest the existence of three different training models – skill-updating, skill-developing and capability-enhancing – depending on the choice processes involved, the importance they accord to employee agency, and the training outcomes. While human resource policies offering training opportunities are important in French organizations, enabling individual capability ultimately depends on employee participation schemes. The article further argues that this goal cannot be achieved through collective voice alone; in vocational training, individual voice plays an equally central role.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to introduce the special issue of theInternational Journal of Manpoweron capabilities, work and human resource policies and practices. After presenting the main concepts of the capability approach, inspired by Amartya Sen's work, the paper goes on to review the major findings of the contributions to this issue.Design/methodology/approachBringing together economists and sociologists, the special issue develops a relevant range of qualitative and quantitative research methods.FindingsThe special issue adopts the capability approach as a yardstick to assess corporate policies from the combined perspective of economic and human development. It asks how firms can contribute to developing sustainable human capabilities at work.Originality/valueHuman resource management is mainly oriented towards optimising workers' labour for the benefit of employers and shareholders. The papers in this issue provide some well‐documented suggestions on how to break with a reductionist understanding of employees as "human capital", considered from the sole viewpoint of economic efficiency, by introducing a shift in perspective towards an integrated approach, embracing both economic and human development.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent and under which conditions restructuring processes allow workers to effectively voice their concerns, with a view to influencing the restructuring logic and transforming its outcomes.Design/methodology/approachIn‐depth case studies with semi‐structured interviews, documentary analysis and a survey, all conducted at firm‐level (taking also into account the impact of the European Workers' Council when relevant).FindingsBoth settings (be it the Swiss flexible labour law and collective labour agreements or the protective professional status enjoyed by the French workers) do not guarantee the enhancement of workers' capability set in restructuring processes. Whatever the entitlements and the cognitive and political resources available to the workers, two conditions are crucial to enhancing their capability for work and for voice: workers' ability to re‐build collectives; and an adequate regulatory framework imposing on employers and shareholders the duty to negotiate.Originality/valueThe paper suggests another way of assessing restructuring processes and outcomes based on the capability approach, and demonstrates its greater relevance compared to economic or managerialist views of restructuring, based on efficiency and profitability.