The introduction of the National Minimum Wage provides an opportunity to examine whether hotel managers act strategically. Most of our sample are affected by this wage floor, and their managers have selected clear response strategies. The majority, 55 per cent, planned to adopt cost minimisation techniques and one third the quality enhancement route.

Deregulation of the system of pay determination in Britain was started in 1979 with the removal of incomes policy. The objective was to give employers the freedom to determine wage increases without the restrictions of pay norms or statutory limits. Instead, companies would be able to link changes in pay to the fortunes of the individual enterprise or establishment. By the mid-1990s, had these attempts to decentralize wage negotiations changed the determinants of wage settlement outcomes in Britain? We address the in¯uence of industrial relations institutions and labour market pressures on wage increases between 1979 and 1994 using evidence from the CBI's Pay Databank. Despite the direction of the Conservative Government's policy, the external institutional forces of the labour market, particularly the rate of in¯ation and comparability, appear to exert an enduring in¯uence, both qualitatively and quantitatively, on pay determination.

The stylized facts associated with workers satisfaction are tested using a distinctive data set. Using principal components analysis five distinct measures of workers satisfaction, and the factors that determine each one are examined. The data set, covering three low-wage service sectors, enables control for workplace characteristics to be made. It is shown that characteristics previously identified as important by the job satisfaction literature, in fact have differing effects according to the type of satisfaction being considered. Then is examined which of the satisfaction components has the greatest impact on overall satisfaction. Satisfaction with short-term rewards and long-term prospects are found to be far more influential in determining overall satisfaction, than contentment with social relationships or work intensity.

This study investigated the relationship of job satisfaction and organizational and religious commitment among full time workers at Akra University (a pseudonym) based on a number of demographic factors. Analysis of variance using the Games-Howell procedure revealed that workers who were older than age 46 years had higher job satisfaction and organizational and religious commitment than younger employees. It was also noted that workers holding doctoral degrees had higher levels of job satisfaction and religious commitment than individuals with a high school diploma only. It was evident that the longer employees stayed at this institution, the higher the levels of organizational commitment and extrinsic job satisfaction, and administrators and sector managers had higher levels of intrinsic job satisfaction and religious commitment than those in other occupational areas.

We examine representative, group-level wage settlement data to augment the debate on nominal pay rigidity in Britain. We investigate the characteristics of groups that settle at zero and the role of within-firm and external influences. Nominal settlement cuts are rare. Zero nominal wage settlements are more common, but still relatively unusual, highest during (low-inflation) recessionary periods. Small groups, above all firms under duress, appear most likely to settle at zero. Once a group settles at zero it is unlikely to do so again in the short run. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2004.