Managing employment on greenfield sites: attempts to replicate high commitment practices in the UK and New Zealand

Abstract

Greenfield sites have been seen as the most favourable setting for the adoption of HRM‐style high‐commitment work practices. We present a comparative study of Scottish and New Zealand greenfield employers’ attempts to replicate a high‐commitment philosophy. After outlining the proprietary recipes of the organisations, we analyse a number of factors that threatened or undermined the practice of the philosophy and show how managers continued to rely on the language of high‐commitment by repackaging and re‐presenting the same philosophy.