The Survey Tradition in British Industrial Relations Research: an Assessment of the Contribution of Large-Scale Workplace and Enterprise Surveys

The paper assesses the contribution to industrial relations research of the large-scale workplace and enterprise-based surveys of industrial relations in Britain, paying particular attention to the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS) series. It takes issue with recent criticism of survey-based analysis in the field, arguing that industrial relations researchers have developed a distinctive and valuable survey tradition. The use of surveys in industrial relations contrasts markedly with that in labour economics, stemming from differing methodological preferences in the two fields. Some limitations of the WIRS series to date are reviewed, before considering future directions that survey research might take in order to capture the changing canvass of industrial relations in Britain.     

Industrial Relations in Hotels and Catering: Neglect and Paradox?

Given that hotels and catering comprise an important part of the service sector representing the changing face of the economy, their neglect in industrial relations discourse about the 'new' industrial relations is no longer sustainable. Previously unpublished data from the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey 1990 (WIRS3) have provided the first opportunity for systematic analysis and evaluation of employment relationship issues in the industry and finds them to be different from those observed elsewhere in the economy. Consequently, hotels and catering can be said to manifest a predominance of 'unbridled individualism' associated with 'poor' industrial relations outcomes which, paradoxically, exist alongside an above average presence of personnel specialists.     

Unions and Employment Growth: The Canadian Experience

Using panel data from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey, the union effect on employment growth is examined. In line with previous North American findings, private sector unions are found to slow employment growth by approximately 2.2 percent per annum. This study is modeled after two recent articles published in this journal; one using the Australian Workplace and Industrial Relations Survey and a subsequent article using the British Workplace and Industrial/Employee Relations Survey.     

Workplace Industrial Relations 25 Years after Donovan: An Employer View

Some common management themes of the 1980s can be traced to Donovan and are revealed in practice by the 1990 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. The paper considers the relevance of factors not endorsed by Donovan and concludes that, while in terms of industrial action in manufacturing — the focus of concern in the mid-1960s — there is evidence that more order and responsibility has been injected into industrial relations at plant level, we cannot yet maintain that inflationary dangers have been overcome. Collective bargaining is, however, now revealed as affecting only a minority in the private sector, and public services behaviour looks increasingly out of step. The paper suggests that future surveys may therefore need to be recast to capture changing patterns of employer – employee relationships and their links to economic success.     

Trade Union Presence and Employer-Provided Training in Great Britain

Using linked employer-employee data from the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, we find a positive correlation between workplace union recognition and private-sector employer-provided training. We explore the avenues through which union recognition might affect training by interacting recognition with the closed shop, the level at which pay bargaining takes place, and multiunionism. For non-manual-labor men and women, only union recognition matters. The various types of collective-bargaining institutions have no separate effect. However, the male manual training probability is significantly increased by union presence only through multiple unionism with joint negotiation. In contrast, for women manual workers, union recognition at the workplace has no effect on the training probability.     

Unions, Safety Committees and Workplace Injuries

This paper exploits the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey from 1990 (WIRS3) to examine the determinants of workplace injuries for a sample of manufacturing establishments in the UK. A key focus of this paper is an assessment of the role played by union-appointed safety representatives and joint health and safety consultative committees in reducing the frequency of workplace accidents. We find that joint consultative committees, with all employee representatives appointed by unions, significantly reduce workplace injuries relative to those establishments where the management alone determine health and safety arrangements. However, an important role is also found for those joint consultative commitees where no employee representatives are appointed by unions.     

The Effect of Trade Unions on the Provision of Training: Australian Evidence

This paper uses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey conducted in 1989–90 to examine the net impact of trade unions on the extent of formal types of employer-provided training. A net positive effect is found, but only where unions are active in the workplace and not merely de jure representatives of the work-force. The results also indicate, with respect to in-house training, that unions shift the emphasis towards work-forces with long tenure, a finding that is consistent with 'union voice' arguments.     

Updating the Determinants of Firm Performance: Estimation using the 1998 UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey

We examine the determinants of establishment performance in the UK, using cross‐sectional data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey to replicate research by Fernie and Metcalf (1995) who used data from the 1990 Workplace Employee Relations Survey; specifically, we test whether employee representation, contingent pay and efforts to boost employee participation affect a set of economic and industrial relations outcome indicators in the manner they suggest. We also re‐estimate the influential WERS90‐based study of Machin and Stewart (1996) on the links between union status and financial performance. In both cases we report very different results.     

Accompaniment,Workplace Representation and Disciplinary Outcomes in British Workplaces — Just a Formality?

The Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 provides data that, for the first time, measure the extent to which workforce representation is part and parcel of grievance and disciplinary processes in British workplaces. This article explores the impact of the introduction of the statutory right to accompaniment at grievance and disciplinary hearings on rates of disciplinary sanctions, dismissals and employment tribunal applications. It concludes that there is little evidence to suggest that either the right to accompaniment or the operation of formal grievance and disciplinary procedures moderates disciplinary outcomes. Instead, it argues that trade union and employee representatives may be influential in facilitating the resolution of workplace disputes.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Mark Cully, Stephen Woodland, Andrew O’Reilly, and Gill Dix, Britain at Work, as Depicted by the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey Neil Millward, Alex Bryson, and John Forth, All Change at Work? British Employment Relations 1980–1998, as portrayed by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Series     

Discipline, Dismissals and Complaints to Employment Tribunals

Using the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, we investigate the rates of disciplinary sanctions and dismissals, and the incidence of unfair dismissal complaints to employment tribunals in the UK. Workplace rates of disciplinary sanctions and dismissals vary with age, gender, ethnic and occupational work‐force composition and workplace size, and, notably, are lower where trade union density is higher. Workplace practices reflecting a high-commitment management style have limited impact on all three of our dependent variables, while the existence of formal discipline and dismissal procedures exerts no influence on whether any unfair dismissal claims are brought at the workplace.     

How Does Workplace Monitoring Affect the Gender Wage Differential? Analysis of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey — A Research Note

This paper outlines the development of a new data source that combines workplace information from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) with employee data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE). Illustrative analysis of the gender wage differential demonstrates how the inclusion of additional workplace characteristics collected from WERS can be utilized to understand better‐observed patterns in earnings within ASHE. Analysis reveals that monitoring gender equality at the workplace is not associated with a reduction in the gender wage gap. Matching WERS/ASHE provides the opportunity to investigate a wider range of workplace phenomena than would be possible based only upon the WERS Survey of Employees.     

Performance Appraisal Systems: Determinants and Change

Using establishment data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this paper estimates the determinants of performance appraisal systems. The results indicate that performance appraisal is associated with workers having shorter expected tenure and greater influence over productivity. We argue these results reflect those circumstances in which the net benefits of performance appraisal are likely to be greatest. The results also show that complementary human resource management practices, such as formal training and incentive pay, are associated with an increased likelihood of performance appraisal, but that union density is associated with a reduced likelihood of performance appraisal.     

Worker support for technical change

The Workplace Industrial Relations Survey shows that in the large majority of cases the introduction of new technology is supported by the workers affected and their union representatives. In contrast, organisational change receives a more mixed response. Case studies reveal some of the principal reasons for the contrasting reactions to different forms of change.     

Corporate Governance and Human Resource Management

This paper investigates the effect of different forms of corporate governance on the structure and nature of stakeholder relationships within organizations and the consequent impact on human resource management (HRM) policy and outcomes. The analysis shows that while performance advantages can be derived from commitment‐based HRM systems, a corporate governance regime that privileges remote stakeholders may operate as a constraint on such systems. The empirical analysis is based on the UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98).     

The Wage Effects of Computer Use: Evidence from WERS 2004

Computers and ICT have changed the way we live and work. The latest Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 provides a snapshot of how using ICT has revolutionized the workplace. Various studies have suggested that the use of a computer at work boosted earnings by as much as 20 per cent. Others suggest this reported impact is due to unobserved heterogeneity. Using excellent data from the WERS employer–employee matched sample, we compare ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates with those from alternative estimation methods and those which include controls for workplace and occupation interactions. We show that OLS estimates overstate the return to computer use but that including occupation and workplace controls, reduces the return to around 3 per cent. We explore the return on different IT skills and find a small return to the use of the ‘office IT function’ and the intensity of computer use as measured by the number of tasks a computer is used for.     

Do Industrial Relations Institutions Influence Foreign Direct Investment? Evidence from OECD Nations

The potential impact of industrial relations institutions on economic outcomes has been a key element in analyzing the governing of the global workplace. We present case information and analysis that show that there are trade‐offs between higher levels of economic outcomes and greater equity and employee voice associated with more and deeper labor market institutions. The estimates from the model show the impact of industrial relations system policies within a nation on a country's foreign direct investment (FDI) from other nations for the period 1985 through 2000 using data from nations that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD). Examples of the impact of major transformations in national industrial relations systems on FDI for UK and New Zealand also are presented. Our results show that higher levels of industrial relations institutions from the firms’ perspective are usually associated with lower levels of FDI.     

Look Who's Talking: Sources of Variation in Information Disclosure in the UK

The article examines the correlates of variable levels of information disclosure by management to employees in the UK. It develops several hypotheses that are tested using 1998 and 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey data. The results show that managerial perceptions of goal alignment by employees and the existence of direct participation mechanisms are positively associated with disclosure at both dates. The size of the workplace has a generally negative relationship at both dates, but less so in 2004 than in 1998. Other variables such as financial distress and the presence of trade unions and joint consultation have more complicated relationships over the two time periods. The article discusses theoretical and policy implications of the findings.     

Unions and Workplace Closure in Britain, 1990–1998

This paper assesses union effects on workplace closure in the private sector in Britain between 1990 and 1998 using panel data from the 1990–98 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. On average, unions raised the chances of workplace closure in Britain in the 1990s, in contrast to the 1980s. However, the size and statistical significance of union effects differ across dimensions of unionization and type of workplace. Furthermore, the results are sensitive to the definition of workplace closure.     

Workplace Risk, Establishment Size and Union Density

The health and safety risk faced by individual employees can be treated as an unobservable latent variable which manifests itself at workplace level through reported counts of work‐related injuries and illnesses over a given interval. This paper presents results from count data regressions using data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. The findings strongly support the view that employees in larger establishments have a lower probability of being injured or falling ill. In addition, establishments with a higher proportion of unionized employees, and with health and safety committees, were associated with higher numbers of reported injuries and illnesses.