The take-up of human resource management by mainstream companies: key lessons from research

Drawing upon a major British study involving over 300 interviews in fifteen case organizations from the private and public sectors, this paper draws out the essential elements of recent changes in industrial relations. In particular, it examines the significance of human resource management initiatives for the practice of industrial relations. The main thrust of the paper examines the ways, and the extent to which, mainstream organizations have transposed and absorbed concepts and practices from the highly publicized ‘lead cases’ into their own routines.

The central argument has three component elements: a whole array of managerial initiatives was launched in the period covered by the research; many of the more far-reaching of these were devised and driven from outside personnel or industrial relations management; cumulatively, these initiatives have impacted on the conduct of industrial relations.

A key concept which is identified and explored is that of HRM/IR ‘dualism’. This is the attempted bolting-on of HRM techniques and language alongside prevailing, albeit to some extent diluted, IR proceduralism. Many of the significant changes in labour management practices stemmed from initiatives taken by general managers, manufacturing directors and line managers. Transformative initiatives in the guise of culture change and structural change often carried profound implications for industrial relations even though these initiatives would not traditionally be regarded as part of industrial relations proper.     

Understanding continuity in public sector HRM through neo‐institutional theory: why national collective bargaining has survived in English local government

Most HRM research over recent decades has concentrated on ‘change’, charting ever more fragmented, individualised and unitarist employment relationships. This is equally true of public sector HRM, where the emphasis has been on neo‐liberalism and marketisation. However, in many countries and sectors, collective, pluralist approaches to HRM and industrial relations have proved remarkably resilient. This article uses Neo‐Institutional theory to explain the ‘continuity’ of one such HRM system: national collective bargaining in English local government (1979–2007). We argue that this survives because it manages the political and managerial processes that link central government and central–local relations and acts as a conduit between institutional stakeholders to deliver services to the public. By understanding the ‘passive consensus’ that holds the collectivist HRM system together, we can anticipate the forces that might pull it apart.     

Collective bargaining and new work regimes: ‘too important to be left to bosses’

The formal negotiations process remains perhaps the least‐studied moment of collective bargaining. Drawing on ideal types of ‘distributive’ and ‘integrative’ bargaining and the ‘formal/informal’ distinction, this article reports non‐participant observation and ethnographic research into the negotiations process that enabled a change agreement in a British multinational, hereafter anonymised as FMCG. Informal bargaining relations provided the backdrop to—and emerged within—the formal negotiations process. Formal bargaining established new employment contracts based on a simplified internal labour market and generated the joint governance processes to enable and regulate the change process. Neither management nor union strategy was wholly derived from rational, interest‐based positions. The negotiations process was essential to strategy formation and to the emergence of sufficient ‘integrative’ bargaining for all parties to devise and approve new processual institutions and norms to deliver a more flexible labour process and to restore the long‐run viability for ‘distributive’ bargaining.     

Power and decision making in the workplace: a study in the coal mining industry*

Here the author illustrates the importance of methodology in industrial relations research to an empirical study of workplace power. It is hoped to convince industrial researchers of the need for a more rigorous examination of the methods of investigation from which so many ‘interesting’ and ‘relevant’ findings result.     

Why gender and ‘difference’ matters: a critical appraisal of industrial relations research

Through a critical rereading of key UK workplace case studies this article explores why gender analysis matters to studies of people at work. We argue that the field of industrial relations could benefit from a greater engagement with feminist‐influenced methodologies. In particular, we analyse three methodological approaches that can assist in understanding the lives of workers; a framework that recognises intersectionality; an account that accommodates both material and cultural explanations; and a research process that is reflexive and recognises positionality. These are identified as intrinsic to a gender‐sensitive analysis, and through a comparison of key texts it is possible to highlight why their absence leads to much research in this field remaining ‘gender blind’.     

Persuasion and industrial relations: a case of argument in a joint consultative committee

As persuasion and argument are central to the processes of industrial relations this article makes a plea for a ‘rhetorical turn’ within industrial relations. Using Toulmin’s model of argument, it highlights the utility of such an approach through analysis of the argumentative nature of discussion within a JCC.     

Industrial relations and the customer

This article examines the implications for industrial relations of the current enthusiasm for ‘customer care’. It does this by reviewing how the three main industrial relations actors; managers, government and trade unions, have responded to the customer service imperative and by considering some of the implications of a ‘customer focus’ for industrial relations theory.     

City Children and Genderfied Neighbourhoods: The New Generation as Urban Regeneration Strategy

Former industrial cities in the West are employing gentrification as urban policy. In these policies, women and families currently play an important role as gentrification pioneers. In my analysis of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, I propose the term genderfication to understand the gender dimensions of this process. Genderfication refers to the production of space for different gender relations. I analyse Rotterdam's urban planning program for becoming a ‘child‐friendly city’, which entails replacing existing urban dwellings with new, larger and more expensive ‘family‐friendly homes’ as a strategy for urban re‐generation. Urban re‐generation supplements regeneration in the form of material and economic restructuring, and refers to the replacement of part of the current population by a new and better suited generation. The ‘child‐friendly city program’ is considered in tandem with punitive ‘youth policies’.     

Conflict for Mutual Gains?*

abstract This paper adopts Walton and McKersie's Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations to examine the outcomes of industrial relations negotiations to implement teamworking. Negotiations from 21 departments across two integrated steelworks are classified into four negotiation patterns, each producing different outcomes from teamworking for managers and employees. Managers secured lower manning and increased productivity in negotiations both in departments characterized throughout by cooperation and those characterized by conflict. However, mutual gains were secured only where union negotiators pursued conflict tactics during bargaining. In those departments where union negotiators adopted more conflictual bargaining tactics, more employees reported pay increases and greater satisfaction with teamworking agreements, compared with employees in more ‘cooperative’ departments. ‘Mixed’ bargaining approaches in other departments were less successful, particularly for union negotiators.     

Back to Little Havana: Controlling Gentrification in the Heart of Cuban Miami

In this article we examine the nature and implementation of governing strategies to control the gentrification of Little Havana, the symbolic heart of Cuban Miami. We ask how Cuban American power relations at the neighborhood level operate to ‘produce’ the citizen best suited to fulfill and help reproduce policies and practices of ‘securing’ in order to gentrify Little Havana. Based on long‐term ethnographic research in Little Havana and Miami, our analysis reveals how governance operates through neighborhood‐level intermediaries and interpersonal relations. We apply Foucault's ‘pastoral power’ to Miami's Cuban exile community in order to explain how the ‘Cuban‐ness’ and ‘Latin‐ness’ of governing relations and the personification of political power are crucial to socio‐spatial control in Little Havana. Elites shape the conduct of individuals in order to achieve strategic goals in the name of community interest. Residents are key partners in the relational ensemble that governs and disciplines the neighborhood comprised mostly of low‐income, Central‐American immigrants.     

Feminist praxis in a trade union gender project

Research as political feminist engagement is explored through analysis of a collaborative west–east European gender equality project with trade union women. Similarities with and differences between forms of labourist and feminist research praxis are discussed. These are brought together through the Freirian concept of conscientizacao or conscientisation, a dialogic pedagogy which has at its core the dialectic of reflection and action. It is proposed that such a framework can be usefully deployed for gendering analysis of ‘engaged’ industrial relations.     

How Interspersion Affects Class Relations

Scholars have identified a new configuration of spatial inequality in several of the largest cities in the developing world. This configuration, which I label interspersion, is characterized by the general proximity of classed spaces, particularly ‘slums’ and ‘enclaves’. There is disagreement about how interspersion affects class relations. One side argues that it worsens class relations by foreclosing substantive class interaction; the other side maintains that it improves class relations by enabling greater class interaction. I argue that it is not the extent but the form of class interaction that matters. Interspersion worsens class relations by promoting categorically unequal interaction. It provides regular opportunities for the imposition of spatial boundaries on slum residents. Regular experiences of boundary imposition deepen their sense of discrimination. This argument is based on an ethnographic study of the relations between slum and enclave residents in Metro Manila.     

Trade Unions and the State: A Review of the Crisis

With the post-war breakdown of the industrial relations consensus ‘the trade union question’ has been central to British politics. In this article, the authors argue that no settlement will be lightly achieved and that it will require detailed policies based on radical principles. The alternative is a continuation of the long drawn out crisis until sectional demands and strife provoke increasing forms of state control.     

The ‘old’ and ‘new’ competition and Malaysian manufacturing firms: a case study

The majority of empirical studies dealing with production processes, work organization and industrial relations practices have been conducted in advanced industrial nations. This article reports on a study of the changing nature of work organization and industrial relations policies in the developing economy of Malaysia. It explores the broad patterns of change in human resource management, technology and work organization among Malaysian manufacturing firms in the context of Best's ‘old’ and ‘new’ competition. The question that arises is: does the evidence reveal that Malaysia is embracing elements of the ‘new competition’, or is it still locked into a regime of mass production, or both? The article argues that the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ competition should not be treated as a simple, straightforward duality model of development. The distinction between the two approaches is sometimes blurred and not so clear-cut. The case study observes that both systems could be operating side by side at the same time within an organization. Since the Malaysian manufacturing sector is expected to shift from simple assembly and process-type operations using labour-intensive techniques to the more advanced and higher value-added industries, greater investment in HRD to upgrade the skills of the work-force and the adoption of appropriate industrial relations policies that emphasize decentralization, greater employee involvement and continuous innovation will become crucial. To be able to compete successfully in the global economy would require a change in focus in the adoption of industrial relations and human resource development policies. For Malaysia to realize its aspiration to become an industrialized and developed nation by the year 2020 would require radical changes in those policies within the context of an integrated approach to economic and industrial planning.     

Gender and regional employment differences: an industrial relations approach

This paper analyses gender differences in regional employment in Europe. An industrial relations approach is used, which requires that regulations and institutions in the labour market be analysed in regard to power relations in the workplace. Gender relations and working conditions are seldom included when welfare-state arrangements and the functioning of the labour market are discussed at a national level. The results of this study show that welfare-state policies, in a broad sense, support women's opportunities to take part in paid work in the labour market. Women in Europe are beginning to occupy an increasing share of the new jobs that are created as they improve their labour-force participation rates. Women are also moving into higher growth sectors of the economy to a larger extent than men. But in terms of occupations, hierarchies and power relations, the mechanisms of segregation in the workplace are changing very slowly. While considerable literature exists on the segregation processes within organizations, very little deals with how to change segregation patterns and how to balance the differences in power between women and men in the workplace.     

Determinants of work organization in the modern firm: change and continuity in the Spanish labour relations

The host of statistical data on labour organization from the 2004 Encuesta de Calidad de Vida en el Trabajo (2005) will be used as a basis for using factorial analysis to identify the factors that determine how ‘modern’ companies organize their work according to business management literature. Workers' identification with their company seems to be the essence of a good part of business managers' objectives. The results of the research point to a continuity in a worker profile that largely corresponds to the Fordist model, with a few significant changes: the domain of some non-conflictive industrial relations which is settled on the value that is given to the good relationships with mates and managers and the flexible work-class positive assessment that allows to harmonize other life aspects.     

Outsourcing,delocalization and firm organization: Transaction costs versus industrial relations in a local production system of Emilia Romagna

This article investigates the firms’ decisions to outsource, taking into account the impact of their embeddedness in a specific regional context on the relative entrepreneurial decision. It focuses on the role of industrial relations, as a factor that could interfere with the entrepreneurs’ decision of resorting to market relationships in discovering and exploiting new business opportunities. We study a local production system in Emilia Romagna (Northern Italy), i.e. the province of Reggio Emilia (RE), whose firms are characterized by a district kind of environment and where entrepreneurship develops in the presence of ‘thick’ industrial relations. The empirical part of the study shows that the role of transaction costs in explaining the outsourcing is blurred, while industrial relations have a stronger explanatory power. Furthermore, it seems that RE firms generally use outsourcing and international delocalization in complementary ways; however, the correlation depends on the activity and the nature of the delocalization channel. Outsourcing strategies appear to be affected by the pattern of socio-economic development in the region where the firms are located. In particular, the entrepreneurial decision to externalize a part of the production process seems to be related to the specific participatory, formal and informal mechanisms involved in regional development.     

Obstacles to transnational trade union cooperation in Europe—results from a European survey

This article analyses obstacles to transnational union cooperation within Europe. It is based on a survey of unions in 14 European countries and all members of the European Trade Union Confederation. The result shows that ‘hard’ industrial relations factors are generally more important obstacles to transnational cooperation than ‘softer’ factors such as cultural, linguistic, ideological and religious differences and that there are sectoral differences in experiences of obstacles to transnational union cooperation: unions in the manufacturing sector tend to emphasise differences in industrial relations and a lack of organisational resources for transnational union cooperation, whereas low organisational priorities are held to be of more importance in the services sector and for unions for professional workers.     

The ‘newcomer’ MNC and the re-organization of national industrial relations actor network: the case of the Finnish food-retailing sector

This article looks at the institutional-level negotiations and configurations between a ‘newcomer’ multinational, the trade union and the association of employers. Developing a relational approach based on Actor Network Theory, the article goes beyond the currently used convergence and divergence perspectives by looking at the effect of MNCs on human resource and industrial relations systems as a process of re-organizing identities and power positions of the actors. A qualitative study on the case of the entry of the first international company (Lidl) into the Finnish food-retailing sector suggests that an international company tends to become positioned as an authorial representative of the global market forces, superior to the national actors. A closer analysis reveals, however, that the trade union is granted with some strategic discretion in the emerging actor network whereas the association of employers appears as the least powerful actor in the evolving configuration. At a general level, the analysis of the Finnish case underlines the importance of examining the MNC effect from a theoretical perspective that pays full attention to the complexities and particulars of the process. Implications for internationally oriented human resource management and industrial relations research are discussed.     

The Evolution of Indian Industrial Relations: A Comparative Perspective

This article examines the evolution of Indian industrial relations in an historical and structural context. In India, the evolution of industrial relations has been ‘incremental’ and ‘adaptive’ and not ‘discontinuous’ and ‘revolutionary’. The relationship between changing industrialisation strategies and industrial relations institutions and practices in India is considerably more subtle than is often supposed in comparative industrial relations narratives, especially when detailed endogenous political economy considerations are taken into account.