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PurposeThe present study seeks to trace the unionization process of a global top 10 video game company (Company N) in which workers formed the first enterprise union in South Korea's game sector. Drawing upon the analytical framework of Kelly's (1998) mobilization theory, the authors investigated what motivated workers to form a union and what factors facilitated unionization.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a qualitative research method on a single case study basis. The authors collected 41 in-depth interviews with game developers, full-time union staff from the case company and union leaders in their affiliated union, as well as game journalists, labour attorneys, and human resource professionals in the video game industry. The authors had their original data supplemented and triangulated by archival data including union letters and other documents and media reports. They analysed the data using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS).FindingsThere are three key findings. First, in the game sector, a high barrier against unionization exists, arising from industry characteristics such as a project-based work system, high mobility, reputation-based hiring, meritocracy, and a continuous influx of game-loving young developers. Hence, although the time was ripe for worker activism, latent grievances failed to be converted into real collective mobilization, resulting in non-organized workplaces for the past decades. Second, the mandatory labour-management negotiations arising from a legal change acted as a key catalyst for unionization at Company N. The newly elected three employee representatives came to identify and develop their own collective interests through the direct experience of negotiations, which greatly augmented their negative emotions and improved their legal consciousness. These three representatives could identify numerous deep-rooted problems, attribute these problems to their employer, and realize that they are ordinary salaried workers different from their employer. Going through the three-month negotiation and post-negotiation period, a set of ordinary game developers transformed themselves into natural union leaders who started a union in the game industry, which was traditionally non-organized. Third, various layers of external factors, such as a sister union, the upper umbrella union, the changed socio-political atmosphere following the candlelight protests for presidential impeachment, and the improved union image facilitated the unionization at Company N.Practical implicationsThis study offers practical implications to governments, union activists, and employers in the game sector and more broadly in the tech industry, where labour-management conflicts are escalating across the globe.Originality/valueOur study of a rare unionization event in the difficult game sector offers a nuanced understanding of mobilization and its process. Theoretically, by introducing the dynamic process of natural leader emergence and spontaneous union formation in a young industry where neither pre-existing leadership nor extant union influence exists, this study suggests that the mobilization process is more complex and variegated than suggested by Kelly's study and subsequent studies. Therefore, this study can advance the current discussion of mobilization mechanisms in the field of industrial relations. Our study also contributes to current research by introducing collective mobilization in a new context, i.e. the young, dynamic game industry in a non-Western country, which is a context that has been under-studied thus far.

Using survey data for call centre establishments in eight countries, we examine the relationship between wages and human resource practices. High‐involvement work design and the use of performance‐based pay are significantly positively related to wages, whereas intensive use of performance monitoring is negatively associated with wages. These relationships are larger among liberal economies compared with co‐ordinated ones, but individual country differences are large and, in many cases, do not conform to expectations regarding institutional differences between liberal and co‐ordinated market economies. The exception is Denmark.

This comparative study examines survey data from 464 call centers in the United States, 167 in the United Kingdom, and 387 in Canada to explore two questions: whether institutional differences shape employers' choices of ways to improve work force flexibility, both numerical and functional; and whether strategies for numerical flexibility and functional flexibility are related. The results suggest that institutional differences across these liberal market economies—specifically, in dismissal regulations and union strength—did affect how employers chose to achieve work force flexibility. For example, the use of part-time workers was more common in countries with more stringent rules regulating dismissals. Organizational characteristics also mattered, with outsourced firms being more likely than in-house firms to use part-time workers. Evidence also suggests that managers used numerical flexibility and functional flexibility strategies as substitutes: higher employee job discretion was associated with both lower dismissal rates and a lower likelihood of temporary use.

whether [11C]PIB could bind to CWPs and serve as an in vivo biomarker of amyloid accumulation in VarAD. A further aim was to assess the correspondence of the [11C]PIB binding to the amount and type of A deposits in deceased VarAD patients brains. Methods: We studied 4 patients with VarAD and 8 healthy controls with PET using [11C]PIB as tracer. Parametric images were computed by calculating the region-to-cerebellum and region-topons ratio in each voxel over 60 to 90 minutes. Group differences in [11C]PIB uptake were analyzed with automated region-of-interest (ROI) analysis. [11C]PIB uptake was compared to the immunohistochemically demonstrated deposition of A in the brains of 4 deceased VarAD patients. Results: Patients with VarAD had significantly higher [11C] PIB uptake than the control group in the striatum ( caudate nucleus and putamen), anterior and posterior cingulate gyrus, occipital cortex and thalamus. In the caudate and putamen [11C]PIB uptake, expressed as region-to-cerebellum ratio, was on the average 43% greater than in the mean of the control group. The increases in the anterior (28%) and posterior (27%) cingulate gyrus, occipital cortex (21%) and thalamus (14%) were smaller. All VarAD patients showed this similar topographical pattern of increased [11C]PIB uptake. The results were essentially similar when the uptake was expressed as region-to-pons ratios. Conclusions: [11C]PIB imaging shows increased uptake in patients with VarAD especially in the striatum, and can be used to detect amyloid accumulation in these patients. The pattern of increased [11C]PIB uptake is different from that seen in sporadic AD and resembles that seen in AD patients with certain presenilin-1 mutations or amyloid precursor protein gene duplication showing predominantly striatal increase in [11C]PIB uptake.