Pay and Working Time: Towards Organization-based Systems? James Arrowsmith and Keith Sisson Abstract The decentralization of pay and working-time determination has widely been seen as marking a shift to organization-based arrangements. Empirical investigation has been limited, however. This paper examines the process and outcomes of pay and working time through a survey of over three hundred workplaces in four important sectors: printing, engineering, retail and health. It ®nds that a strong sector effect is demonstrated whether or not there are national arrangements in place, and that employers tend to move like ships in a convoy when managing change. It is argued that the convergence and durability of existing arrangements is associated ®rst with the structural boundaries provided by markets, technology and labour; second with the increased importance of legitimacy in a context of growing uncertainty; and third as a result of shared information sources and networks. The strength of the sectoral reference raises signi®cant questions for much of current organizational research, notably its focus on levels of pay and the relevance of the analytical distinction between the internal and external labour markets. The research also has a number of important policy implications, drawing attention to the pros as well as cons of co-ordination in pay and working-time arrangements. 1. Introduction Many changes have been recorded in pay and working time in recent years. The most notable development in the settlement process has been the shift from traditional structures of multi-employer agreements towards speci®- cally organizationally based arrangements (Brown et al. 1995; Brown and Walsh 1991; Millward et al. 1992). The underlying trend seems to be general and re¯ects (a) adjustments in management strategy in the light of intensifying competition; (b) the adoption of new production arrange- ments, such as just-in-time (JIT) and total quality; and (c) key changes in James Arrowsmith and Keith Sisson are in the Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick. British Journal of Industrial Relations 37:1 March 1999 0007±1080 pp. 51±75 # Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.