Trine P Larsen

Søren Kaj Andersen

A New Mode of European Regulation? The Implementation of the Autonomous Framework Agreement on Telework in Five Countries

Keywords: alternative regulation methods, autonomous agreements, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Hungary

■ This article examines the implementation of the first autonomous framework agreement signed by European social partners in a number of member states. Although the telework agreement states that it is to be implemented in accordance with national procedures and practices specific to management and labour, practice is often different. The approach adopted reflects the specific policy character of the telework agreement and the ongoing power struggle between unions, employers and the state.

Introduction

Autonomous framework agreements between the European social partners are a new form of regulation through social dialogue. The first agreements on parental leave (1995), part-time work (1998) and temporary work (1999) were transposed into legally binding directives, but those on telework (2002) and work-related stress (2004) are to be implemented voluntarily at national level by the affiliates of the signatories. In this article, we argue that implementation has only partly followed what we normally consider the national 'practices and procedures specific to management and labour'. The choice of implementation method seems to be mainly determined by the specific policy type involved in the telework agreement, and the power struggle between unions, employers and the state.

We examine the implementation of the telework agreement in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Sweden and the UK, very different labour market regimes within EU. We first briefly discuss contemporary theories on implementation before examining the extent to which the method of implementation and the procedures of negotiations and consultations have led to differences from the countries' traditional ways of regulating the labour market.

Analytical Framework and Research Method

Studies of the implementation of European regulations show that relatively new forms have been developed to transpose European policy into national practice [START_REF] Falkner | Complying with Europe[END_REF]. Member states often choose different implementation methods according to the type of policy under consideration, for instance, legislation alone or in combination with collective agreements. The few studies of the implementation of sectoral agreements, recommendations and joint declarations signed by cross-sector organizations at European level suggest that national social partners often issue guidelines for good practice, or merely establish monitoring systems [START_REF] Benedictus | The European Social Dialogue: Development, Sectoral Variation and Prospects, Report to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment[END_REF][START_REF] Keller | Europeanisation at Sectoral Level[END_REF][START_REF] Pochet | Sectoral Social Dialogue? A Quantitative Analysis[END_REF]. National social partners may involve local or federal authorities in some initiatives, for instance on vocational training, while excluding them from others.

The choice of implementation strategy seems to depend on three parameters: policy type, national regulation traditions for the labour market and power games between the actors [START_REF] Falkner | Complying with Europe[END_REF][START_REF] Lampinen | Implementation Deficit: Why Member States Do Not Comply with EU Directives[END_REF]Rhodes, 2000). National regulation traditions are the rules of the game or institutionalized power balances which traditionally regulate national labour markets [START_REF] Strøby ; Jensen | Arbejdsmarkedsmodeller i Europa[END_REF]. Power games reflect short-term variations in the balance of power, and can emerge when implementing specific labour market reforms.

It is common to distinguish three types of labour market regime: liberalpluralist, neo-corporatist and state dominated [START_REF] Crouch | Industrial Relations and European State Traditions[END_REF]Visser, 1996). We class Germany as a neo-corporatist regime while Denmark and to some degree Sweden display a mixture of neo-corporatist and pluralist traditions of regulation. In all three countries the labour markets are regulated primarily through collective agreements designed by relatively well-organized and strong trade unions and employers' associations. The UK is a pluralist regime, since the state has a limited role in regulating the labour market, while social partners are relatively weak and have no mandate to engage in national bargaining. The classification of Central and Eastern European labour market systems has been subject to much debate. Since Hungary has an extensive labour code and the social partners are relatively weak, we treat it as a variation of an etatistic regime.

The policy network theory of [START_REF] Rhodes | New Directions in the Study of Policy Networks[END_REF] demonstrates the importance of power relations between government and key stakeholders when designing and implementing policy. Government dependence on key stakeholders, in this case social partners, can vary from one policy area to another; as a result, their participation in the political process differs according to the policy area under consideration (Rhodes, 2000;[START_REF] Rhodes | New Directions in the Study of Policy Networks[END_REF]. However, stakeholders' collaboration, understanding and compliance with specific policy goals are crucial for the implementation results, especially when governments rely on private and voluntary entities to deliver their polices (Barrett and Fudge, 1981). The delegation of responsibility for the implementation telework agreement to the social partners rather than national governments may trigger new power games and forms of collaboration, since some member states have no tradition of leaving labour market regulation to social partners.

Various studies have shown that the policy type influences the choice of implementation method and the way key stakeholders are involved in the policy-making process [START_REF] Larsen | New Labour's Policy Style: A Mix of Policy Approaches[END_REF]Rhodes, 2000;[START_REF] Winter | Traditions and Transitions in Industrial Relations: A European View[END_REF]. We define this as the specific content, the implementation obligations and the responsibility for implementation prescribed by the agreement. One or more of these can be primarily influential according to circumstances, such as pressure from the EU, national or local levels.

We distinguish between three forms of negotiations and consultation procedures. Collective bargaining entails bipartite negotiations between the social partners (at confederal, sectoral or company level). Concertation involves tripartite negotiations between the state and the social partners. Consultation implies the exchange of different views, which do not necessarily result in common negotiations or a common decision [START_REF] Ishikawa | Key Features of National Social Dialogue: A Social Dialogue Resource Book[END_REF]. With respect to national implementation methods, we differentiate between collective agreements, legislation and guidelines for good practice.

Our analysis is based on 16 interviews with representatives from national ministries, trade unions and employers' associations in Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Hungary and the UK conducted during the autumn 2005 and spring 2006. A further 125 interviews were conducted with representatives at sectoral level in Denmark, Germany and Sweden; because negotiations at sectoral level are rare in Hungary and the UK, we did not include the sector level in these countries. The interviews were by telephone or face-to-face. They were recorded and then transcribed. A common coding scheme was used to analyse the interviews. In the following analysis, we briefly describe the political process behind the telework agreement at European level before examining the detail of the implementation process at confederal and sectoral levels.

Negotiating the Telework Agreement

The telework agreement was signed by European social partners (ETUC, UNICE/UEAPME and CEEP) on 16 July 2002, after eight months of negotiations. It provided that teleworkers -defined as those who work away from the employer's premises regularly, and use information technology to do so -should possess the same rights as comparable workers at the employer's premises. The aim was to enable companies to modernize their work organization while assisting employees to reconcile work and family life. As far as possible, the use of telework was to be voluntary on both sides; there were provisions regarding health and safety and training; and measures were to be taken to avoid teleworkers becoming isolated from other employees. The European social partners and their member organizations were responsible for implementing and monitoring the agreement.

The European Commission first issued proposals for the regulation of telework in June 2000. Before the December 2001 Laeken Council, the European social partners had announced their intention to develop 'a spectrum of diversified instruments' as alternatives to the legislative route, including autonomous framework agreements (De Boer et al., 2005: 64). However, the use of this instrument for telework was highly controversial. UNICE, reflecting in particular the views of their British affiliate the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), at first opposed any form of regulation. CEEP was in favour of an autonomous agreement, but the ETUC was divided [START_REF] Benedictus | The European Social Dialogue: Development, Sectoral Variation and Prospects, Report to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment[END_REF]. Most Nordic affiliates supported an autonomous agreement, but the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) and some other continental unions argued in favour of a directive.

An important reason for agreement on this basis was that CEEP and UNICE would accept nothing more binding; but several interviewees also mentioned that the choice of regulation method reflected social partners' common wish to achieve increased autonomy from the European Commission and to show that they still had a role to play despite their failed attempt to reach an agreement on agency work. Country-specific interests were also important. Nordic unions in particular wanted to test the possibility of European regulation in a form consistent with their own 'voluntarist' principles; while southern European unions saw a voluntary agreement as an opportunity to strengthen their role in their national political systems. Telework was perceived as a relatively uncontroversial topic, of peripheral concern in most member states [START_REF] Eironline | Teleworking and Industrial Relations in Europe[END_REF]. 'Soft law' is seen as appropriate for subjects such as telework, which often concern the development of new practices and tools at company level rather than protecting employees' basic rights. The extent to which the policy type has also influenced the national implementation process is examined below.

Implementing the Telework Agreement

The agreement was to be implemented by 15 July 2005, but only five of the 25 member states (Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Spain and the UK) met this deadline [START_REF] Clauwaert | Report on the Implementation of the ETUC/UNICE-UEAPME/CEEP Framework Agreement on Telework[END_REF]. Most others had nearly completed the implementation process, but some countries (Denmark, Austria, Czech Republic and Slovenia) had still not finalized implementation by mid-2006 and the position in two others (Lithuania and Cyprus) was unclear (ETUC/UNICE/CEEP/UEAPME, 2006). Failure to comply with EU implementation deadlines (even for binding directives) is not, however, a new phenomenon [START_REF] Falkner | Complying with Europe[END_REF][START_REF] Mastenbroek | EU Compliance: Still a Black Hole[END_REF].

A range of implementation methods has been used in different countries: legislation, collective agreements and guidelines for good practice (see Table 1). Portugal and several new member states have followed national traditions by transposing the telework agreement into legislation. The UK and Ireland have issued guidelines for good practice. Collective agreements or guidelines have been used in most other continental countries, though 185 regulating the labour market through such guidelines is not part of most national traditions, even though the telework agreement stated that implementation should be according to national 'practices and procedures specific to management and labour'. The experience in the five countries investigated also shows divergence between implementation method and national regulatory traditions.

Denmark

In Denmark, the government left the implementation of the telework agreement to the social partners, in line with its self-regulating principle and voluntary nature. The implementation process seems to follow national labour market traditions, where the social partners through collective bargaining largely determine the labour market regulation [START_REF] Due | The Survival of the Danish Model[END_REF]. However, differences exist with respect to the way individual trade unions and employers associations at confederal and sectoral levels have addressed the implementation of the telework agreement.

At confederal level, the Ministry of Finance and Kommunernes Landsforening (KL), representing employers within the state and local government sectors, and their union counterparts Central-organisationernes Faellesudvalg (CFU) and Kommunale Tjenestemaend og Overenskomstansatte (KTO) agreed to include a reference to the European agreement in their existing framework agreements on tele-and homework. According to interviewees, this was decided because telework was already regulated in the Danish public sector. However, it is questionable whether this can be considered implementing the telework agreement by collective agreement.

In the private sector, some unions and employers' associations have relied on a similar procedure, while others have developed alternative methods or chosen not to implement the agreement at all. No agreement has been reached at confederal level, though negotiations are ongoing. The employers' confederation Dansk Arbejdsiverforening (DA) favours a set of guidelines for good practice, whereas the main union confederation Landsorganisationen i Danmark (LO) argues that the agreement should be implemented as a collective agreement. The outcome remains uncertain. DA's resistance to negotiating an agreement was reinforced by the fact that other European countries with strong traditions of regulation by peak-level collective agreement developed guidelines for good practice rather than following their national traditions. The voluntary nature of the telework agreement has also, according to Danish interviewees, enabled DA to refuse to sign a collective agreement or develop guidelines for good practice with the professional confederation Akademikernes Centralorganisation (AC) [START_REF] Kristiansen | Redegørelse om gennemførelse af rammeaftalen om telearbejde, Notat til AC[END_REF].

This implies that the policy type, particularly the self-regulating principle and legal status of the telework agreement, has triggered new power games between some trade unions and employers' associations and paved the way for alternative implementation methods at confederal level. This questions the force of Danish labour market traditions in this context.

At sectoral level, the great majority of private-sector unions and employers' associations have failed to implement the telework agreement. However, implementation agreements have been reached in two major sectors, manufacturing industry and commercial services; these have either replicated the European agreement in existing collective agreements, or used a similar method to the public sector. Affiliates of LO, DA and the white-collar confederation Funktionaererne og Tjenestemaendenes Faellesråd (FTF) have also relied on different implementation methods. In the private sector, only two affiliates of FTF and LO respectively have implemented the telework agreement, using guidelines for good practice or collective agreements. The sectoral unions and employers' associations cite a range of reasons for failure to implement the telework agreement in the private sector (see Notes: Different member organizations mentioned a range of reasons why they had not implemented the telework agreement, which is why the numbers of answers given and the number of member organizations are not the same. a primarily members in the public sector.

In most cases, they already regulated telework by collective agreement, or else thought that the issue was irrelevant to their members because of the nature of their work. Hardly any unions or employers' associations had been asked by their members or counterparts to implement the telework agreement. A few interviewees also claimed that they lacked competence to sign a collective agreement on the issue, or stated that their employer counterparts had been unwilling to implement the agreement. Other unions and employers' associations also reported that they felt no obligation to implement the agreement because it was voluntary. This suggests that the policy type, particularly the agreement's content and legal status have been crucial for the implementation record at sectoral level. As a result, the influence of Danish regulatory traditions seems limited. This tends also to be the case when telework was regulated by collective agreement; some respondents still argued that collective agreements were not always their preferred implementation method, although they generally speaking supported the Danish collective agreement model. Employers in particular reported that the content of the telework agreement and, in particular its consistency with existing Danish rules, largely determined their choice of implementation method.

In sum, the Danish case suggests that the policy type has triggered new power games among social partners and paved the way for alternative implementation methods which deviate from what we normally define as Danish labour market traditions. As explained below, Denmark is not the only country which has relied on alternative implementation methods.

Germany

The German social partners have also relied on a mix of implementation methods ranging from collective agreements, joint declarations, guidelines for good practice to information pamphlets about the telework agreement. These methods differ to some extent from what we normally associate with German labour market traditions, and this is even more marked when looking at the implementation method used by individual trade unions and employers associations.

At confederal level, the social partners within the public and private sectors have relied on different implementation methods. The privatesector employers' confederation Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände (BDA) signed a joint declaration with the union confederation Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB), encouraging social partners at sectoral and company levels to implement the agreement. These organizations also held a conference with their counterparts from Austria, Denmark and France, and published a pamphlet with guidelines for good practice (BDA/ZDH/VKA/DGB, 2006). The confederation of artisan producers Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks (ZDH) simply informed members about the telework agreement, while the peak organizations in the public sector failed to implement the agreement because they had no mandate to sign collective agreements. The civil service confederation Deutscher Beamtenbund (DBB) is not a member of ETUC and felt no obligation to implement the agreement.

The interviewees from BDA and DGB also emphasized that they had no mandate to negotiate collective agreements, but this was only part of the reason why they chose to regulate telework through guidelines for good practice. The content of the telework agreement is already regulated through existing German legislation and the peak organizations therefore found it unnecessary to transpose the agreement into legislation. In addition, its legal status and self-regulating principle induced them to use guidelines for good practice, as the only option when the implementation responsibility lies with the national social partners and the agreement is voluntary. The implementation responsibility given to the peak organizations has also instigated a relatively new form of social dialogue between them, since they rarely collaborate on developing common policy according to the German interviewees. This suggests that the policy type has largely determined the choice of implementation method as well as the procedures for negotiation at confederal level in Germany. Some peak organizations have largely been able to ignore the agreement while others have developed alternative implementation methods.

Most German trade unions and employers associations at sectoral level have thus failed properly to implement the telework agreement. In the public sector, the local authority employers (Vereinigung der kommunalen Arbeitgeberverbände, VkA) has signed local agreements which cover approximately 10,000 employees, but the Ministry of the Interior and the Tarifgemeinschaft deutscher Länder (TdL), representing the federal and Land-level employers, have failed to implement it (BDA/ZDH/VKA/ DGB, 2006). Likewise, relatively few trade unions and employers' associations have implemented the telework agreement in the private sector. BDA's affiliate Gesamtmetall is the main exception, having signed local agreements and guidelines with their counterpart IG Metall. BDA's member organization, the Employers Association of Insurance companies (AGV), has also signed some local agreements and guidelines with their local counterparts. The private-sector put forward a range of explanations (see Table 3).

As in Denmark, most found it unnecessary to implement the telework agreement. Few local and sectoral organizations already regulated telework through collective agreements or guidelines, but the vast majority saw regulations on telework as irrelevant for their own members. Several union and employer representatives also reported that neither their members nor counterparts had requested them to regulate telework as a result of the European agreement. This suggests that the content of the agreement to some extent accounts for the relative poor implementation record. However, some organizations also stated that they were unaware of the telework agreement and some also felt no obligation to implement it because of its voluntary nature. Thus the German case also suggests that it is particularly the policy type which has paved the way for alternative regulation methods, even in a country where legislation and collective agreements are the most common forms of labour market regulations [START_REF] Marginson | Europeanisation and Regime Competition: Industrial Relations and EU Enlargement[END_REF].

Sweden

The social partners have taken the lead in the implementation process in Sweden, using collective agreements and guidelines at confederal and sectoral levels. The peak organizations held a series of meetings, and in December 2005 agreed on a common set of guidelines for good practice on telework for both the public and private sectors, which stands in sharp contrast to the cases of Germany and Denmark. The negotiation procedures for the telework agreement were, according to the Swedish interviewees, relatively novel, since employment issues are primarily regulated through collective agreements at sectoral level, while European labour market directives tend to be implemented by legislation. The negotiation procedures and Note: Different member organizations mentioned a range of reasons as to why they had not implemented the telework agreement, which is why the numbers of answers given and the number of member organizations are not the same. a only some members at local level.

implementation methods were also subject to much debate. The three trade union confederations wanted to regulate telework according to Swedish traditions of collective agreements, while the private employers (Svenskt Näringsliv, SN) in particular opposed this, arguing that autonomous agreements signed by European social partners represented a new form of regulation for which Sweden had no precedent [START_REF] Ahlberg | Först Frivilliga Europeiska Avtalet ny Norm för Umgänget mellan Parterna?[END_REF]. The unions were forced to settle for guidelines which encourage rather than compel social partners at sectoral level to implement the agreement, since SN was unwilling to alter its position. This suggests that new power games have to some extent been triggered at confederal level by the policy type under consideration. These new power games seem to have been more influential than Swedish regulatory traditions. Such power games seem to have played only a limited role at sectoral level, although a recent report by the white-collar confederation Tjänstemännens Centralorganisation (TCO) concluded that unwilling employers had forced their affiliates to regulate the European agreement through guidelines rather than collective agreements [START_REF] Tco | The Implementation in Sweden of the Framework Agreement on Telework[END_REF]. However, only one trade union at sectoral level mentioned this during the interviews. Instead, the content of the telework agreement seems to explain why the majority of Swedish trade unions and employers' associations failed to implement it in the private sector; while social partners in the public sector decided to add a reference to the European agreement in their existing collective agreement on telework.

Representatives from both sides of industry referred to this factor as the main reason for their preferred implementation method. The publicsector representatives stated that they already regulated telework through collective agreements, but as in the Danish case, it is debatable whether adding a reference rather than replicating the European agreement in their collective agreements can be considered as proper implementation. Table 4 shows the number of organizations who have implemented the telework agreement at sectoral level and the main arguments put forward by those that failed to do so.

Among interviewees at sectoral level, eight TCO affiliates in the public sector had transposed the telework agreement into collective agreements. In the private sector, the employers' associations for forestry and farming and their counterpart the white-collar union (HTF) were the only member organizations of TCO and SN to implement the telework agreement through collective agreements, though guidelines for good practice were agreed in three sectors. Among affiliates of the largest (manual workers') confederation, Landsorganisationen i Sverige (LO), the metal workers' union also agreed on guidelines for good practice with the employers. Hence national regulatory traditions have only to some extent been followed at sectoral level, although Sweden has strong traditions of collective bargaining.

The most common explanations put forward by Swedish social partners for their limited implementation of the telework agreement were that their members or counterparts had not requested this, and that telework was irrelevant for their members. Some unions and employers' associations even reported that their organization had removed previous regulations on telework from their collective agreements because their members were not interested in working from home. This implies that in Sweden too, the content of the telework agreement played an essential role for the choice of implementation method. However, some interviewees also reported that they were unaware of the telework agreement and that they had limited competences to sign sectoral agreements. A mix of factors seems therefore to have influenced the relatively poor implementation record in Sweden. As a result, the Swedish regulatory traditions seem to have had a limited influence on the implementation process. Note: Different member organizations mentioned a range of reasons as to why they had not implemented the telework agreement, which is why the numbers of answers given and the number of member organizations are not the same. a primarily members in the public sector. Source: ETUC/UNICE/CEEP/UEAPME (2006).

The UK

In contrast to Denmark, Sweden and Germany, the British implementation process has involved both social partners and the government. The TUC and CBI took the lead in developing guidelines, while the government provided mediation, funding and monitoring. This form of implementation is relatively novel in the UK, as the British government has been involved in a negotiation process which deviates from the dominance of company-level bargaining between unions and employers [START_REF] Edwards | Great Britain: from Partial Collectivism to Newliberalism to Where?[END_REF]. Tripartite negotiations, where social partners take the lead, are also relatively unusual in the British political system, where governments usually possess an overall parliamentary majority and can implement labour market reforms unilaterally (Taylor-Gooby, 2001). According to the British interviewees, the relatively new policy style has been triggered by the telework agreement's voluntary nature and self-regulating principle. The British government therefore found it unnecessary to legislate, but participated in the negotiations after receiving an invitation from the TUC and CBI. The British interviewees also reported that it was mainly the CBI's initiative to invite the government to host the negotiations. It feared that bipartite negotiations with the TUC would signal its acceptance of social partnership and collective bargaining at confederal level, which it fundamentally opposes. However, it is noticeable that CBI was eventually willing to negotiate with the TUC. According to the interviewees, it could hardly reject implementing the telework agreement, even though this required negotiation with the TUC, since the voluntary nature of the telework agreement reflected its own arguments for less EU legislation. This suggests that European pressure in terms of introducing a new form of European regulation has paved the way for a relatively new British negotiations procedure.

The policy type (particularly the telework agreement's self-regulating principle) seems important in this respect, although ongoing power games also influenced the British choice of negotiation form. It should be noted, however, that these negotiations coincided with those over the implementation of the 2002 EU information and consultation directive, which resulted for the first time on a negotiated agreement for transposing EU employment legislation in the UK. The influence of national labour market tradition on the implementation process therefore seems limited. This is further underpinned when examining the social partners and the British government's arguments for regulating telework through guidelines for good practice.

The British government and social partners found it unnecessary to transpose the telework agreement into legislation, but they initially disagreed that guidelines were the right instrument. The TUC called for a collective agreement, mainly because teleworkers were to a large extent already protected by existing labour laws, and the European agreement was more about developing new forms of organizing work than securing individual employees' rights. The government put forward similar arguments for their choice of guidelines, while the CBI advocated guidelines as consistent with British regulatory traditions and their wish for a flexible implementation method. This indicates that the telework agreement's content and voluntary nature influenced the choice of British implementation method. Hence the negotiation process also suggests that ongoing power games between social partners and government have affected the implementation process.

During the negotiations, the CBI reportedly pressurized the TUC to sign the proposed guidelines by threatening to leave the negotiations. Interviewees also reported that the British government had strongly supported the CBI position and had threatened the TUC with exclusion from other policy areas unless they accepted the proposed guidelines for good practice. It was mainly to avoid stalemate and exclusion that TUC very reluctantly signed the guidelines. We conclude that the policy type seemed to have triggered new power games between the national government and social partners, which largely determined the policy outcome at confederal level.

The extent to which the telework agreement has been transposed at sectoral and local levels in the UK is uncertain, but according to the British interviewees, no sectoral agreement has so far been signed -to be expected, because of the limited tradition of collective bargaining at sectoral leveland none of the interviewees knew the exact number of local agreements on telework. In sum, the British implementation process indicates that the policy type has to some extent triggered new power games and influenced the choice of implementation method in the UK, although national traditions have to some extent been followed.

Hungary

Not all countries have developed alternative implementation methods for the telework agreement. Hungary, for instance, has followed their national traditions and in May 2004 transposed the telework agreement into legislation, which gives precedence to collective agreements on telework signed at sectoral level.

During the implementation process, the government took the lead, in sharp contrast to the implementation process in the other four countries. According to the Hungarian interviewees, the social partners have primarily contributed to the process through consultation, but generally speaking supported the government's proposed implementation method. However, some interest organizations, trade unions and employers' associations opposed such a rigid form of regulation.

The main arguments put forward by the social partners and the government concerned the relative weakness of social dialogue at confederal and sectoral level. According to the Hungarian interviewees, the social partners had themselves proposed that telework be regulated through legislation, as they lacked the resources in terms of legal expertise to transpose the agreement into collective agreements. The government referred to the relatively weak positioning of social partners in Hungary as their main argument for legislation [START_REF] Eironline | New Legislation Regulates Telework[END_REF]. In Hungary, union density is about 20 percent and unions are often not present in companies with fewer than 10 employees, which is the most common company size [START_REF] Dti | Report of UK Presidency Conference: European Social Dialogue, Many Voices, Common Vision[END_REF][START_REF] Strøby-Jensen | Svage og staerke fagforeninger[END_REF]. The implicit power relations between social partners and national government seem therefore to be an important reason why legislation regulates telework in Hungary. The policy-making process further underpins this, as the contributions from social partners were limited during the consultation process, mainly because of their relatively few resources and low interest in telework. The latter reason also suggests that the telework agreement's content to some extent influenced the choice of implementation method. The government's existing plans on regulating telework through legislation may also have influenced the choice of implementation method. According to the Hungarian interviewees, telework had for years been a high-profile issue on the government's political agenda, since it was seen as a way to increase the employment rate.

In sum, the Hungarian implementation process indicates that the social partners' meagre resources and low union density, along with the relative weak social dialogue, have been crucial for the decision to regulate telework through legislation. This suggests that the European agreement's voluntary nature and self-regulating principle had only a limited effect on the Hungarian implementation process.

Discussion and Conclusion

The European social partners' first autonomous framework agreement on telework has recently been transposed into national practices across Europe. The implementation process has been rather patchy, as a range of industrial relations scholars predicted already in the 1990s [START_REF] Keller | The New European Social Dialogue: Old Wine in New Bottles[END_REF][START_REF] Streeck | European Social Policy after Maastricht: The Social Dialogue and Subsidiarity[END_REF]. Most scholars and even the European social partners themselves, in their latest evaluation report on the telework agreement, refer to the member states' industrial relations systems as the main reason for the diverse implementation results. However, in our study we have identified three parameters, which to a varying degree influenced the choice of implementation method and procedures for negotiation and consultation; national regulation traditions, ongoing power games and the policy type.

National labour market traditions seem to have an uneven influence on the implementation process, even in countries with strong traditions of collective bargaining (Denmark, Sweden and Germany) and where policymakers decided to follow national traditions (Hungary, the UK and to some extent Denmark). The ongoing power games (the balance of power between social partners and the state during the implementation of a specific policy) seem to have played a more substantial role in the implementation process. Likewise, the policy type was also crucial for the implementation process. This concept refers to three elements; the content of the agreement, the implementation obligations and the delegation of the implementation responsibility to national social partners rather than national governments.

It was particularly the voluntary nature of the telework agreement, its content and self-regulating principle which paved the way for alternative implementation methods and procedures for negotiations and consultations. Some member states have no tradition of leaving labour market regulation to social partners, which meant that new power games between social partners and the state often were instigated. Our approach goes beyond the arguments for path-dependency and the power resource model of [START_REF] Rhodes | New Directions in the Study of Policy Networks[END_REF], since some national employers' associations have been engaged in a form of social dialogue with their counterpart, even though they often oppose any collaboration with trade unions at confederal level. In addition, some member states have developed alternative implementation methods because of the telework agreement's content and voluntary nature, sometimes giving rise to new power struggles between employers, unions and the state.

As a result, the implementation record of the selected countries suggests that the telework agreement has most often been transposed at confederal level, often through the development of alternative implementation methods and procedures for negotiation and consultation. These approaches commonly deviate from national regulatory traditions. At confederal level, Germany, Sweden and in part Denmark have developed alternative implementation strategies through bipartite bargaining processes (Germany, Denmark) or common negotiations including all peak organizations (Sweden). The UK has relied on concertation at confederal level while in Hungary the government has engaged in consultation before enacting legislation. The approach in the UK is relatively novel, since the social partners took the lead in the implementation process, while the government had a more passive role. At sectoral level, the social partners have often failed to transpose the telework agreement in accordance with national practice in all five countries. The different country studies questions the notion of path dependency: even when European policies specifically encourage member states to follow national practices and procedures specific to management and labour, the procedures actually adopted have often proved to be very different.

TABLE 1 . National Implementation Results

 1

		Legislation	Collective	Guidelines	No informa-
			agreements/	for good	tion regarding
			Framework	practice	the imple-
			agreements		mentation
					method
	Nordic
	countries		Denmark,	Sweden,
			Sweden	Denmark,
			Finland,	Norway c
			Norway c
			Iceland c
	Continental	Belgium,	Belgium,	Germany,
	Europe	Luxembourg	France,	Netherlands,
			Germany,	Austria
			Luxembourg,
	Southern	Portugal
	Europe		Italy, Spain,	Spain
	Anglo-Saxon		Greece	UK,
	countries			Ireland
	New member	Czech	Hungary,	Czech	Bulgaria b ,
	states and	Republic a ,	Latvia	Republic,	Cyprus
	accession	Hungary,	Poland	Latvia	Croatia b ,
	countries	Slovakia,			Lithuania,
		Slovenia,			Turkey b
		Estonia,
		Poland, Malta
	Notes:

a uncertain whether telework is covered by existing legislation. b New candidate or accession countries. c Members of the European Economic Area who are obliged to implement the telework agreement. Source: Clauwaert et al. (2005: 1); ETUC/UNICE/CEEP/UEAPME (2006: 5-10).

Table 2

 2 ).

	187

TABLE 2 . Implementation Results in the Danish Private Sector

 2

		DA	LO	FTF
	Affiliates	13	18	98
	Implementation	Collective	Collective	Collective
	record	agreements: 1	agreements: 8 a	agreements: 67 a
		Guidelines: 2	Guidelines: 1	Guidelines: 1
	Reasons for
	non-compliance
	No need to	7	8	10
	regulate telework
	Telework	1	7	3
	irrelevant
	Existing	3	3	11
	guidelines/
	agreements
	No request	6	5	5
	Unwilling	-	2	1
	Employers
	Unawareness	1	1	4
	No mandate/lack	1	-	2
	resources
	Feel no obligation	2	5	5
	Don't know	3	2	13

TABLE 3 . Implementation Results in the German Private Sector

 3

		BDA	DGB
	Affiliates	54	8
	Implementation record	Collective	Collective
		agreements: 2	agreements: 2 a
		Guidelines: 2	Guidelines: 2 a
	Reasons for non-compliance
	No need to regulate telework	8	3
	Telework irrelevant	23	4
	Existing	12	1
	guidelines/agreements
	No request	15	3
	Unwilling employers	-	-
	Unawareness	8	1
	No mandate/lack resources	-	-
	Feel no obligation	6	-
	Don't know	20	2

TABLE 4 . Implementation results in the Sweden private sector

 4

		SN	LO	TCO
	Affiliates	50	15	17
	Implementation	Collective	Collective	Collective
	record	agreements: 1	agreements:	agreements: 9 a
		Guidelines: 4	Guidelines: 1	Guidelines: 3
	Reasons for
	non-compliance
	No need to	3	5	1
	regulate telework
	Telework	12	3	8
	irrelevant
	Existing	4	1	3
	guidelines/agreements
	No request	13	6	1
	Unwilling	-	-	1
	employers
	Unawareness	4	3	1
	No mandate/lack	2	-	-
	resources
	Feel no obligation	1	-	-
	Don't know	23	4	5

European Journal of Industrial Relations 13(2)

Larsen & Andersen: A New Mode of European Regulation?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The article is part of a five year research programme Social Dialogue in the Enlarged EU funded by the Danish Industry's Educational Fund (Industriens Uddannelsesfond), the Ministry of Employment (Beskaeftigelsesministeriet), the Confederation of Danish Employers (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening) and the Building Society's Educational Fund (Byggeriets uddannelsesfond). We thank the different representatives of national social partners and policy-makers who participated in this study, and our colleagues Christina J. Colclough for useful comments on an earlier draft and Åsa Lundkvist for transcribing the Swedish interviews.


Juan Gabriel

Gabriel Cepeda-Carrión

Why Open-mindedness Needs Time to Explore and Exploit Knowledge

Keywords: exploiting knowledge, exploring knowledge, open-mindedness, time

It is clear from the literature that in situations where organizations and their members face changing environments, it is necessary that mechanisms (learning) exist to capture the new knowledge which enables the firms to address those changes. This article examines the relative importance and significance of the existence of an 'open-mindedness context' to the existence and nature of 'organizational learning'. We include time as a variable in the analysis and focus on the need to unlearn at a moment (T) in order to learn more efficiently at a moment after (T+1). These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 107 Spanish small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within the telecommunications industry. The results indicate that the effects of exploration and exploitation of knowledge at moment T+1 is conditioned by the existence of an 'open-mindedness culture' at moment T.

Introduction

Since the publication of [START_REF] March | Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning[END_REF] pioneering article, the terms 'exploration' and 'exploitation' have emerged as the twin concepts underpinning organizational adaptation research. [START_REF] March | Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning[END_REF] described two aspect of organizational learning: a) exploration of (i.e. creating) new knowledge, skills and processes; and b) exploitation of (i.e. using) existing knowledge, skills and processes. Although it seems intuitively clear that a firm needs both elements to explore new possibilities to ensure profits for tomorrow and exploit old certainties for profits for today, there is some ambiguity regarding the relationship between exploration and exploitation [START_REF] March | Organizations[END_REF]. As competition intensifies and the pace of change accelerates, it is likely that aspects of exploratory and exploitative processes (e.g. routines and procedures) will change over time, requiring the modification of some of the contents of organizational learning [START_REF] Levinthal | The Myopia of Learning[END_REF]. In this regard, a value closely associated with a learning organization is open-mindedness [START_REF] Sinkula | A Framework for Market-Based Organizational Learning: Linking Values, Knowledge and Behavior[END_REF]. Open-mindedness is an organizational value that measures receptivity to new and possibly different ideas. While familiar approaches to problems and their solutions may have proven successful in the past, open-minded contexts are more likely to question long-held practices and beliefs [START_REF] Sinkula | A Framework for Market-Based Organizational Learning: Linking Values, Knowledge and Behavior[END_REF] and encourage the sharing of strategic information among decision-makers [START_REF] Day | Continuous Learning About Markets[END_REF]. Open-mindedness engenders a willingness to question current thinking and practice, to be receptive to emerging possibilities, to share ideas and to consider differing perspectives.

While the conceptual distinction between exploration and exploitation and their implications for strategy and structure have been intensively studied [START_REF] He | Exploration vs. Exploitation: An Empirical Test of the Ambidexterity Hypothesis[END_REF], there has been surprisingly little empirical investigation of the effects between the open-mindedness context and the learning process over time. Time has traditionally been considered in the management literature as a constant rather than a variable, a belief [START_REF] Bluedorn | Time and Organizational Culture[END_REF] ascribes to people in general. Further, as Bluedorn notes, the belief that time is a constant is deeply institutionalized, which suggests that most people, most of the time, do not even consider the possibility that time may vary. This suggests one should speak of 'times' rather than 'time' [START_REF] Purser | The Times of Cause and Flow in Organizational Change[END_REF]. We assume in our study that 'times' are sequential, first to create an open-mindedness context and then to explore and exploit knowledge. To do so we propose the construction and analysis of three structural models. Whereas in the first model, open-mindedness is oriented to the exploration process, and the 'exploration process' is analysed in the creation of 'exploitation activities' as a prior step, in the second model 'exploitation' is considered as a prior step. In the last model, 'exploration and exploitation' are considered to be undertaken in parallel.

Conceptual Framework

Time

Models in current organizational theory rest on a theoretical understanding of time whose guiding concept is permanent identity. However, the identity con-cept appears to be problematic in general, and for complex entities such as organizations, the issue of identity is more complex than for generic things. The focus on identity leads to a linear conception of temporality. The effect is to consider the organization existing 'in' time, although its identity evolves and changes 'through' time [START_REF] Gioia | Organizational Identity, Image and Adaptative Instability[END_REF]. The outcome is omitting time as a variable in management research. However, another set of authors focuses on time as a variable to be taken into account. For [START_REF] Gist | Self-efficacy: A Theoretical Analysis of its Determinants and Malleability[END_REF], an individual's level of self-efficacy can be expected to change over time as new information and skills are acquired though direct experience of the task, performance feedback and other factors. [START_REF] Crossan | Time and Organizational Improvisation[END_REF] focus on three aspects of time: a) Time as a trigger for change -as [START_REF] Gersick | Revolutionary Change Theories: A Multilevel Exploration of the Punctuated Equilibrium Paradigm[END_REF] work shows, groups with very different characteristics change their behaviour when approaching the middle of the span of time they have to perform a task; b) Time acts as a co-ordination mechanism for change -time creates a shared calendar for change and, thus, serves to schedule activities and to maximize their synchronization [START_REF] Hedberg | Camping on Seesaws: Prescriptions for Self-designing Organizations[END_REF]); c) Time as a resource for change -time provides organizational members with the temporal space they need to reflect on and conceive of that change [START_REF] Tyre | Time as a Trigger for Organizational Change[END_REF], e.g. planning aims to enable co-ordination. It does so not by establishing deadlines on a case-by-case basis but by dictating the pace of the organization through the explication of its major change cycles [START_REF] Eisenhardt | Time Pacing: Competing in Markets That Won't Stand Still[END_REF].

Causal time is seen as one-dimensional, structured in terms of past (t 0 ), present (t 1 ) and future (t 2 ) [START_REF] Adam | Time and Social Theory[END_REF]. In this 'from-to' causal structure, whatever arises in the future has its origin in the past [START_REF] Tulku | Dynamics of Time and Space: Transcending Limits on Knowledge[END_REF], which means that organizational members who are always responding to a series of real-time instants are forced to think and act immediately [START_REF] Mckenna | Real Time: Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer[END_REF], and demands for instant responses frequently means relying on learned routines, established customer relations and unconscious cognitive biases [START_REF] Purser | The Influence of Deliberations on Learning in New Product Development Teams[END_REF]. Therefore, when the rate of change itself is steadily accelerating, it becomes highly problematic as to whether or not the knowledge needed to manage change can be accessed in a timely manner. Our focus is the relationship between casual time and knowledge. In the learning process, knowledge is a process that happens over time, and takes time to learn and unlearn [START_REF] Purser | The Times of Cause and Flow in Organizational Change[END_REF].

For the purposes of this article, we suggest that the implementation of an open-mindedness context is variable and distant in time by the fact that many of the behaviours and habits designed to foster a learning culture often require time [START_REF] Lei | Developing Organizations for Competitive Advantage: The Power of Learning and Unlearning[END_REF]. Changing a learning culture presents a similar problem. The values that define and shape a culture are generally deeply embedded, and are exceedingly difficult to change in the short term [START_REF] Lei | Developing Organizations for Competitive Advantage: The Power of Learning and Unlearning[END_REF]. Therefore, a decision to re-orientate exploration and exploitation processes takes an extended period to produce significant results. This suggests that an open-mindedness context at a certain point affects the organizational learning afterwards by changing the ways individuals interact or come to interpret things. Only in this way, by creating a fostering context to change (t 0 ), can new cycles of exploration and exploitation receive updated knowledge at the later moment (t 1 ). In the following paragraphs, we examine these concepts in greater detail and postulate relationships between them.

Learning terms

Relevant literature pays great attention to the modifications to the knowledge stored in a firm [START_REF] Huber | Organizational Learning the Contributing Processes and the Literatures[END_REF], particularly in situations where the firm encounters unusual events for which it has no answer, thus initiating search processes and eventually leading to a new solution (e.g. [START_REF] Cyert | A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (2nd edn)[END_REF]. Organizational learning constitutes an idiosyncratic and complex capability, which is difficult to imitate, replicate and transfer [START_REF] Argyris | Organizational Learning[END_REF]. This capacity allows organizations to solve new problems or to solve old problems in new ways [START_REF] Miner | Advances in Strategic Management[END_REF]. As has been described by many investigators, such as [START_REF] March | Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning[END_REF] and [START_REF] Volberda | Co-evolutionary Dynamics Within and Between Firms: From Evolution to Co-evolution[END_REF], there are two types of learning; namely, exploration and exploitation of knowledge.

Knowledge exploration starts with search, variation, risk-taking, experimentation and innovation, and is the stage in which novel practices are introduced. Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can encourage the exploration of knowledge by implementing formal or informal meetings, or creating external communities of practice where customers and sellers interact and work together for the achievement of a particular objective [START_REF] Dewhurst | External Communities of Practice and Relational Capital[END_REF]. Such knowledge can be internalized by sellers and customers who materialize it in the form of relational trust, common language and confidence [START_REF] Selnes | Promoting Relationship Learning[END_REF]. At this stage, knowledge is individual rather than collective [START_REF] Cohen | Individual Learning and Organizational Routine[END_REF], and tacit rather than explicit [START_REF] Nonaka | A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation[END_REF]. This tacit knowledge eventually becomes consolidated, often through 'trial and error', and becomes explicit so that it can be stored in the organizational memory [START_REF] Selnes | Promoting Relationship Learning[END_REF] and then exploited by the members of the organization.

Exploitation of knowledge is the process of effective allocation of resources into valuable and competitive business platforms based on existing knowledge [START_REF] March | Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning[END_REF][START_REF] Holmqvist | Experiential Learning Processes of Exploitation and Exploration: An Empirical Study of Product Development[END_REF]. While knowledge exploration retains the knowledge within the organization, knowledge exploitation releases the knowledge into the external environment. Sub-activities involved in an instance of knowledge exploitation include targeting the output, producing the output by interpreting and applying existing knowledge for the target, and transferring the output by packaging and delivering projections that have been produced for customers in the environment [START_REF] Holsapple | The Knowledge Chain Model: Activities for Competitiveness[END_REF].

Open-mindedness

It is obvious that all knowledge generated via exploration and exploitation processes does not stay there permanently. The open-mindedness context has, at its heart, an attempt to re-orientate organizational values, norms and/or behaviours by changing cognitive structures [START_REF] Nystrom | To Avoid Organizational Crises, Unlearn[END_REF], mental models [START_REF] Day | Managerial Representations of Competitive Advantage[END_REF], dominant logics [START_REF] Bettis | The Dominant Logic: Retrospective and Extension[END_REF], and core assumptions that guide behaviour [START_REF] Shaw | Teaching Organizations to Learn[END_REF]. If this is so, the contribution of that context has to do with the ability to prepare the ground for new learning to appear. According to [START_REF] Bogenrieder | Social Architecture as a Prerequisite for Organizational Learning[END_REF], managers need to foster a context that opens the way for new habits, patterns, ways of doing and interpreting things to take place. With this aim, [START_REF] Sinkula | A Framework for Market-Based Organizational Learning: Linking Values, Knowledge and Behavior[END_REF] proposed that open-mindedness (i.e. a willingness to consider ideas and opinions that are new or different) is associated with this kind of context through which the management supports the proactive questions of existing organizational routines, assumptions and beliefs, potentially leading to being ignored, modified, deleted or replaced. Now the question is whether open-mindedness at the moment (t 0 ) has a direct or indirect effect on exploration and exploitation of knowledge at a later moment (t 1 ). Does the simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation activities add to or detract from each other's values?

Answering the question of continuity or parallelism may further depend on the level of analysis. As noted previously, exploration and exploitation are fundamentally different concepts that require very different strategies and structures, and the resulting tensions between the two are difficult to reconcile [START_REF] He | Exploration vs. Exploitation: An Empirical Test of the Ambidexterity Hypothesis[END_REF]. While adapting for tomorrow requires change, flexibility and creativity, profits for today require order, control and stability [START_REF] Volberda | Co-evolutionary Dynamics Within and Between Firms: From Evolution to Co-evolution[END_REF]. [START_REF] March | Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning[END_REF] provides several arguments in favour of his theorization that the two processes are fundamentally incompatible. First, exploration and exploitation compete for scarce organizational resources. In this regard, we would observe that since resources are scarce in SMEs, any resources devoted to exploration imply fewer resources left over for exploitation, and vice versa. Second, and assuming all else is equal, both types of actions are interactively self-reinforcing. In other words, the return of a particular item of knowledge is likely to depend on the other that the organization has at its disposal. Based on these concepts, exploration and exploitation processes are not autonomous, but they are continually interacting [START_REF] Zollo | Deliberate Learning and the Evolution of Dynamic Capabilities[END_REF]. Through exploration, new ideas and actions flow from the customer to the vendor and from the vendor to the rest of the organization. As [START_REF] Harrington | Corporate Culture, Absorptive Capacity and IT Success[END_REF] note, knowledge exploration within the organization allows the acquisition, distribution, interpretation and storage of new knowledge that permits the organization to understand and censor new information systems as to their even-tual use to the organization. At the same time, what has already been learned feeds back from the organization to the individual and customer levels, affecting how individuals act and think. These findings are consistent with [START_REF] Holmqvist | Experiential Learning Processes of Exploitation and Exploration: An Empirical Study of Product Development[END_REF] conceptualization that exploration within organizations may form a prerequisite for organizational exploitation, and illustrate what authors such as [START_REF] Boland | Designing Information Technology to Support Distributed Cognition[END_REF] express when they suggest that exploiting knowledge supports knowledge exploration because it reduces uncertainty. It tells employees about their learning -what is working (do more of this) and what is not (do less of this). These aspects are studied in our investigation in the first two models of the work:

Model 1 Open-mindedness context (OM; t 0 ) → exploration of knowledge (ER; t 1 ) → exploitation of knowledge (ET; t 1 )

Model 2

Open-mindedness context (OM; t 0 ) → exploitation of knowledge (ET; t 1 ) → exploration of knowledge (ER; t 1 ) A parallel argument is made in [START_REF] Gupta | The Interplay Between Exploration and Exploitation[END_REF] on the specialization of firms in exploration and exploitation and the matching of their search processes through co-operation. It is suggested that exploration and exploitation can effectively be balanced in systems of organizations when co-operating partners, A and B, possess complementary capabilities. In this regard, [START_REF] March | Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning[END_REF] suggests that maintaining an appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation is critical for firm survival and prosperity. Similarly, [START_REF] Levinthal | The Myopia of Learning[END_REF] argued, 'the basic problem confronting an organization is to engage in sufficient exploitation to ensure its current viability and, at the same time, to develop enough energy for exploration to ensure its future viability' (p. 105). The ability to manage an appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation has been labelled as 'ambidexterity' [START_REF] Tushman | Ambidextrous Organizations: Managing Evolutionary and Revolutionary Change[END_REF]. A firm is regarded as ambidextrous if it has relatively equal emphasis on explorative and exploitive processes [START_REF] He | Exploration vs. Exploitation: An Empirical Test of the Ambidexterity Hypothesis[END_REF]. Under this model, openmindedness enables and encourages individuals to make their own judgement about how to divide their time between conflicting demands for alignment and adaptability. To validate this possibility, we propose the following model: Model 3 exploration of knowledge (ER; t 1 ) Open-mindedness context (OM; t 0 ) exploitation of knowledge (ET; t 1 ) Figure 1

Method

The Spanish economy has grown at an average annual rate of 3.6 per cent between 1996 and 2004. Today, the Spanish economy is the fifth largest in Europe, accounting for around 9 per cent of European Union output (OECD, 2005). The Spanish telecommunications industry was the subject of our data collection. The total market in Spain for 'telecommunications' (including set and mobile, and data communications with broadband Internet access as a key means of transmission), represents 18 per cent of the total European telecommunications market and nearly 4.7 per cent of the Spanish gross domestic product. SMEs that make up the Spanish telecommunications industry are highly motivated to introduce processes for learning and unlearning as they have to face up to a highly dynamic environment, strong competition and rapid advances in technology. In Spain, SMEs represent more than 99.8 per cent of all registered businesses, account for about 70 per cent of those participating in the workforce and generate approximately 65 per cent of the gross domestic product [START_REF] Faces | La Unión Monetaria Europea: Un Desafío Estratégico Para la PYME Española [The European Monetary Union: A Strategic Challenge For Spanish SMEs[END_REF].

FIGURE 1 Open-mindedness context versus organizational learning

Data collection and measures

In order to test these models, we employed key informant methodology [START_REF] Kumar | Conducting Interorganizational Research Using Key Informants[END_REF] to collect survey data in the telecommunications industry in Spain during 2004 and 2005. The executives surveyed were identified as appropriate key respondents based on two criteria: a) possession of sufficient knowledge, and b) adequate level of involvement with regard to the issues under investigation [START_REF] Campbell | The Informant in Quantitative Research[END_REF]. To further ensure the validity of our data and ensure that we isolated the correct key informants, we included validation items in the research instrument. We used these items to again verify that the executives who responded were fully qualified to provide the information we requested.

The data were gathered in two phases and the first phase lasted over a month, from early May to June 2004. In total, 665 companies were solicited for participation in the study by telephone, and only 195 agreed. All companies were classified according to the European Union classification as SMEs. The second phase lasted for about two months, from early May to July 2005. In total, 130 companies (the companies that had completed the survey one year earlier) were contacted and 107 surveys were carried out, which gives a response rate of 16.09 per cent of the total (54.87% response rate from the companies who agreed). A comparison between the companies that answered and the companies that did not answer yielded no significant differences relevant to turnover, total assets or the number of employees, which suggests that non-response bias is not a problem [START_REF] Armstrong | Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys[END_REF].

Based on a discussion of the literature, a questionnaire consisting of 13 items (five measuring the range of learning exploration, four measuring the range of learning exploitation and four measuring the extent to which the open-mindedness context was achieved) was designed (see Appendix for questionnaire items).

The final measures relating to the existence of an 'open-mindedness culture' scale consisted of six items adapted from a scale designed by [START_REF] Baker | The Synergistic Effect of Market Orientation and Learning Orientation on Organizational Performance[END_REF] to measure the construct of open-mindedness. These items describe the way management faced up to change, introduced it actively into the company through projects, collaborated with other members of the organization and recognized the value of new information or risk-taking.

The market orientation construct is highly relevant to generating knowledge in organizations (e.g. [START_REF] Kohli | MARKOR: A Measure of Market Orientation[END_REF]. Even though other possible dimensions of market knowledge can be discussed and conceptualized, the discussion of intelligence generation versus knowledge exploration is considered to be a fruitful starting point. While the former encourages individuals in the organization to track changing markets and share market intelligence with customers [START_REF] Kohli | MARKOR: A Measure of Market Orientation[END_REF], the latter places emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge about other external agents (e.g. universities, expert technicians, etc.). It is also more related to encouraging exploration of knowledge through formal and informal meetings where external (e.g. customers) and internal agents (e.g. sellers) interact and work together for the achievement of a particular objective. In this study, the final measures relating to the existence of learning exploration consisted of six items adapted from a scale designed by Pérez [START_REF] Pérez López | Managing Knowledge: The Link Between Culture and Organizational Learning[END_REF] to measure the construct of knowledge acquisition. Consistent with Pérez López et al. ( 2004), items that tapped the exploration of knowledge were interwoven with issues related to encouraging individuals in the organization to track changing markets and share market intelligence with external agents.

The existence of conditions necessary to support knowledge exploitation was measured using an adapted version of a scale also designed by Pérez López et al. ( 2004) to measure the constructs of 'knowledge interpretation'. This construct focuses on the implementation of information, having a sense of pride and ownership in one's work, and being aware of the critical issues that affect one's work. In line with Pérez López et al. ( 2004), items investigating the exploitation of knowledge were combined with issues related to support policies, rules and reporting structures that encourage the generation of new insights, taking actions that are experimental in nature, breaking out of traditional mindsets to see things in new and different ways, and developing the competencies for doing one's job. Four items make up this scale.

Data Analysis and Results

We used structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the proposed models and used EQS 6.1 to test the measurement and structural models. Using SEM involves following a two-stage approach [START_REF] Barclay | The Partial Least Squares (PLS) Approach to Causal Modelling: Personal Computer Adoption and Use as an Illustration[END_REF]. The first step requires the assessment of the measurement model. This allows the relationships between the observable variables and theoretical concepts to be specified (constructs). For the second step, the structural model is evaluated. The objective of this is to confirm to what extent the causal relationships specified by the proposed model are consistent with the available data.

To analyse the relationships between the different constructs and their indicators, we have adopted the latent model perspective, in which the latent variable is understood to be the cause of the indicators and, therefore, we speak of reflective indicators. All three constructs in the model are categorized as reflective.

With regards to the measurement model, the procedures included assessments of item and scale reliability, unidimensionality, and convergent and discriminant validity in order to validate measures. First, a series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. A single factor was extracted for each multiple-item reflective scale in these analyses, using an eigenvalue of 1 as the cut-off point (which indicates that the measurement scales used in this study were unidimensional).

Next, overall measurement quality was assessed using confirmatory factor analyses [START_REF] Anderson | Structural Modelling in Practice: A Review and Recommended Two-Steps Approach[END_REF]. Maximum likelihood was used in the estimation and re-specification of the confirmatory measurement model, and the sample covariance matrix was used as input.

After this depuration process, the resulting measurement model for the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model was found to fit the data reasonably well: χ 2 (63) = 85.63, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.95, incremental fit index (IFI) = 0.95, non-normed fit index (NNFI) = 0.94, and root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.06. In addition, all items loaded significantly on their respective constructs (with the lowest t-value being 5.14), providing support for convergent validity. As a check for discriminant validity, the square root of the average variance extracted for each construct was greater than the latent factor correlations between pairs of constructs (see Table 1; [START_REF] Fornell | Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error[END_REF]. Discriminant validity was also obtained using chi-square difference tests for all pairs of constructs (that is, correlations between all pairs of constructs were shown to be significantly below unity). The reliabilities of the multiple-item reflective measures are reported in Table 1, along with construct correlations and descriptive statistics for the scales. All reliability estimatesincluding coefficient alphas, average variance extracted for each construct and composite reliabilities -are well beyond the threshold levels suggested by [START_REF] Nunnally | Psychometric Theory[END_REF] and [START_REF] Fornell | Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error[END_REF]. It is therefore concluded that the measures are unidimensional and have adequate reliability, discriminant validity and convergent validity. The structural models resulting from the SEM analysis are summarized in Table 2, where the standardized path coefficients (β) and the t-values associated are shown. As is observed, all paths presented in the three models are significant and have therefore been verified. We also reported the measures of fit for each model. As can be observed, the third model may be considered as the most appropriate since it rates the best values for every measure of fit. This comparison among three models permits the conclusion that the third model fits better to the observable data than the other models shown.

Discussion

In today's organizational environment of increasingly rapid continuous change, the consequences of relying on learned routines become increasingly problematic. Our results support that open-mindedness at a moment (t 0 ) is a significant positive predictor of learning at moment (t 1 ). These findings highlight the significance of time, a factor often overlooked in organizational learning research. In the present study, time in open-mindedness is one factor that is important in determining the relative impact of outdated knowledge. It must be noted that organizations may attempt to update information on employee skills, expertise and knowledge through open-mindedness efforts, but employees may be reluctant to forget a complete personal profile for a variety of reasons. For example, open-mindedness may decrease an employee's motivation because the performance appraisal criteria become unclear. Furthermore, the effect of openmindedness is slow because it takes time for individuals to forget outdated knowledge. This is, in part, due to the liability of success. 'The presumed correctness of past actions and interpretations is reinforced by repeated success, and the ensuing complacency breeds rejection of information that conflicts with conventional wisdom' (Day, 1994: 24). In addition, individuals tend to overlook relevant events just outside their domain that threaten their reputation and careers [START_REF] Starbuck | Learning by Knowledge-intensive Firms[END_REF]. Consequently, managers should not expect instant results of open-mindedness with regard to organizational learning. In such situations, open-mindedness may be further 'consolidated' through time and the emergent understandings that are created by organizational members when they interact; or by exploitive processes (e.g. using organizational memory), which may offer a better way of delivering information [START_REF] Schein | How Can Organizations Learn Faster? The Challenge of Entering the Green Room[END_REF]. In our examination of causal time in the field of organizational learning, we have questioned the existing models that relate to open-mindedness and organizational learning. In doing so, three models of knowledge management have been identified in this article.

The first model recommends aligning open-mindedness efforts with the firm's explorative capacity. The fit statistics for this model were acceptable with χ 2 (63) = 93.57; CFI = 0.90, IFI = 0.92 and RMSEA = 0.068. The interaction between open-mindedness and exploration was positive with a standardized coefficient of 0.271, t = 2.43 (p < 0.01). This reinforces the idea that exploratory behaviour alone may produce poor results in the acquisition of external knowledge. Companies may acquire external knowledge using only similar processes or contacts to what they have utilized previously. That is, rather than deciding ahead of time which process or partner must be used to acquire external knowledge and making this explicitly available to the exclusion of everything else, managers need to reassess long-held organizational routines, assumptions, and beliefs [START_REF] Sinkula | A Framework for Market-Based Organizational Learning: Linking Values, Knowledge and Behavior[END_REF], allowing organizational members to call upon aspects of practice, latent in the periphery, as they are needed [START_REF] Brown | Stolen Knowledge[END_REF]. Otherwise, external information will rely on prior experience and inter-firm trust that has been created with familiar partners [START_REF] Lavie | Balancing Exploration and Exploitation in Alliance Formation[END_REF]. Note that this model also indicates that in order to exploit knowledge, organizations need to provide and support exploration of knowledge as a prior step. In this regard, we have found a significant effect of exploration on exploitation of knowledge with a standardized coefficient of 0.209, t = 1.99 (p < 0.01). This addresses the concerns expressed by authors such as [START_REF] Humphreys | Longitudinal Evaluation of Innovation Implementation in SMEs[END_REF] when they assert that if employees are going to challenge their deepest-held meaning in a workplace context, the workplace context needs to change prior to this.

The second model recommends aligning open-mindedness efforts with the firm's exploitive capacity. The fit statistics for this model were also acceptable with χ 2 (63) = 88.80; CFI = 0.93, IFI = 0.94 and RMSEA = 0.062. The interaction between open-mindedness and exploitation was positive with a standardized coefficient of 0.356, t = 3.15 (p < 0.01). From this view, the framework for openmindedness is related to changing the implicit preconscious mode of thinking.

Through open-mindedness, individuals will be able to think outside their conventional boundaries and recall inappropriate attitudes and habits. In this model, we have also found a significant effect of exploitation on exploration of knowledge with a standardized coefficient of 0.209, t = 1.99 (p < 0.01). This finding corroborates the notions of [START_REF] Day | Continuous Learning About Markets[END_REF] that when personal value structures and behaviours change, this might result in a change in the organizational structures to one that is more oriented around end-user markets, which in turn results in a relation shift that favours the customers. As a result, because of their inherent flexibility, these firms are able to quickly reconfigure their architecture and reallocate their resources to focus on emergent opportunities or threats [START_REF] Slater | Market Orientation and the Learning Organisation[END_REF].

Regarding the third model, open-mindedness was significantly related to both exploration and exploitation processes with standardized coefficients of 0.263 (p < 0.01) and 0.356 (p < 0.01) respectively. It is often stated in relevant literature that firms more often converge (exploit) rather than re-orient (explore) due to a variety of reasons such as organizational inertia (e.g. [START_REF] Hannan | Structural Inertia and Organizational Change[END_REF][START_REF] Milliken | The Effect of an Organization's Recent Performance History on Strategic Persistence and Change: The Role of Managerial Interpretations[END_REF]. Consequently, our results challenge these traditional views, as they suggest that an open-mindedness context is an important antecedent to encourage the alignment of knowledge exploitation and exploration within the organization. Organizations with the highest levels of openmindedness appear able to simultaneously explore and exploit knowledge through time. Furthermore, a comparison among the three models permits the conclusion that the third model fits better to the observable data than the first two models shown (the fit statistics for the third model were χ 2 (63) = 86.76; CFI = 0.94, IFI = 0.94 and RMSEA = 0.060). Therefore, we can infer that in most situations the appropriate knowledge approach will be neither of the first two models. An explanation for this could be that the first two models are affected by the advantages and disadvantages of the knowledge categories they concentrate on. On one hand, the first model (OM → ER → ET) renders knowledge easier to store [START_REF] Hansen | What's your strategy for managing knowledge?[END_REF] and communicate [START_REF] Grant | Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm[END_REF] but exposes it to higher risk of external capture [START_REF] Hall | Managing Knowledge Associated With Innovation[END_REF]. On the other hand, the second model (OM → ET → ER) makes knowledge safer from imitation [START_REF] Spender | Organizational Knowledge, Collective Practice and Penrose Rents[END_REF] but more difficult to store [START_REF] Ambrosini | Tacit Knowledge: Some Suggestions for Operationalization[END_REF], and susceptible to loss due to labour turnover [START_REF] Boiral | Tacit Knowledge and Environmental Management[END_REF].

Conclusions

This study has examined, through an empirical study of 107 Spanish telecommunications SMEs, how open-mindedness affects the exploration and exploitation of knowledge over time. Our findings support the need for managers to become more aware of the need to consider time when they drive the conditions and/or context in which knowledge can be explored and/or exploited. Because exploration and exploitation of knowledge create rules that may become inflexible during the learning process, time is required to break them. With this in mind, we argue that traditional concepts of managing and leading change based on causal-time assumptions need to yield to methods aimed at deepening participation or immersion in the immediacy of the temporal flow. Managers should consider incorporating open-mindedness and time in models of organizational learning as this provides a holistic presentation and adds realism to exploration and exploitation processes.

The need for such a concept of time in theories of organizational learning is necessary because, if open-mindedness is continuous and accelerating rapidlyand it is difficult to argue that it is not -the issue of casual time to manage openmindedness becomes problematic. The causal-time framework analyses current situations in terms of the past conditions that gave rise to them. It results in knowledge that is bound to the inertia of past routines and the gravity of organizational identity, and thus proves counterproductive when the truths that held in the past mutate with ever increasing rapidity. Understood in this way, openmindedness gives access to the dynamic of time, and knowledge attuned to this dynamic can serve as a more reliable guide to explore and exploit knowledge. Through open-mindedness, individuals take the initiative and are alert to opportunities beyond the confines of their own jobs (e.g. taking action in the broader interest of the organization or thinking about work processes). In addition, individuals can become sufficiently motivated and informed to act spontaneously, without seeking permission or support from their superiors. Therefore, the implication for management practice is that open-mindedness is a desirable context that business units must foster to stay ahead of the competition as it involves adaptation to new opportunities aligned with the overall strategy of the business, although the establishment of this context is not immediate.

The study is not without limitations. First, although the constructs have been defined as precisely as possible by drawing on relevant literature and being validated by practitioners, they can realistically only be thought of as proxies for an underlying latent phenomenon that is itself not fully measurable. Second, the model presented in this study was general and did not capture the possible moderating effects of environmental turbulence and uncertainty. Prior research has shown that the effect of cognitive factors on individual, group and organizational performance can vary substantially with environmental conditions. For instance, under turbulent conditions, open-mindedness efforts might produce more desirable results for organizational performance. Moreover, we are only able to provide a snapshot of ongoing processes over a short period of time (i.e. t 0 → t 1 ).

Taking into account its limitations, this study points to the need for new avenues of research. First, we consider that the use of additional items might help capture the rich construct to a greater extent. Second, the companies must also understand that open-mindedness is not about a one-time investment but it requires constant attention and investment over a substantial period of time, even after it begins to deliver results. Therefore, another possible research direction could examine the open-mindedness effects on organizational learning over the same period of time (t 0 → t 0 ) or over a long period of time (e.g., t 0 → t 2 ).

APPENDIX

Questionnaire items

Knowledge exploration: indicate the degree of agreement or disagreement (1 = high disagreement and 7 = high agreement) with respect to your organization. ER1: Co-operation agreements with other companies, universities, technical colleges, etc. are fomented ER2: The company is in touch with professionals and expert technicians ER3: The organization encourages its employees to join formal or informal nets made up by people from outside the organization ER4: The employees attend fairs and exhibitions regularly ER5: Your employees frequently maintain work meetings with customers Knowledge exploitation: indicate the degree of agreement or disagreement (1 = high disagreement and 7 = high agreement) with respect to your organization. ET1: All the members of the organization share the same aim to which they feel committed ET2: Employees share knowledge and experience by talking to each order ET3: The company develops internal rotation programmes so as to facilitate the shift of the employees from one department or function to another ET4: The company offers other opportunities to learn (visits to other parts of the organization, internal training programmes, etc.) so as to make individuals aware of other people's or departments' duties Open-mindedness culture: indicate the degree of agreement or disagreement (1 = high disagreement and 7 = high agreement) with respect to your employees. OM1: The company is prepared to change working practices OM2: New and novel approaches are considered OM3: Employees are prone to collaborate with members of the organization and to solve problems together OM4: Employees take risks

  provides a synopsis of all three models; while in the first model the open-mindedness culture is oriented to the exploration process, in the second model, individuals that form part of the company exploit knowledge due to the existence of an open-mindedness context. Finally, in the third model, openmindedness supports a simultaneous balance within the learning process.

TABLE 1 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix

 1 Mean = the average score for all of the items included in this measure; SD = Standard Deviation; CA = Cronbach's Alpha; CR = Composite Reliability; AVE = Average Variance Extracted. The bold numbers on the diagonal are the square root of the Average Variance Extracted. Off-diagonal elements are correlations among constructs.

		Mean SD CA CR AVE 1	2	3	4
	1. Open-mindedness culture	5.51 1.56 0.86 0.91 0.72 0.85
	2. Exploration of knowledge	5.29 1.39 0.81 0.87 0.56 0.30 0.75
	3. Exploitation of knowledge	5.47 1.62 0.80 0.87 0.63 0.38 0.18 0.79

Time & Society copyright © 2008 SAGE (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) VOL. 17 No. 2/3 (2008), pp. 195-213 0961-463X DOI: 10.1177/0961463X08093422 www.sagepublications.com

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