Social Partnership in Ireland and New Social Pacts

Social partnership in Ireland has attracted considerable international attention. This paper examines the origins, focus, and institutional architecture of the Irish social partnership model. The paper also examines social partnership in the context of the theory of social pacts and suggests that the institutionalization of social partnership can be attributed to the continuing significance of compensatory political exchange, the influences of partnership networks, and the effects of new mechanisms for conflict resolution.     

Globalization and Industrial Relations in East Asia: A Three-Country Comparison

Globalization enhances competitiveness, both at the level of the firm and at the level of the nation. As observed in China, Malaysia, and Korea, this leads management and the state to adopt strategies designed to increase labor effectiveness to the benefit of capital. However, the effect of globalization on industrial relations procedures and substantive outcomes is contingent. Pressure for greater flexibility in the use of labor is ubiquitous, but the outcome is constrained by cultural norms valuing hierarchy and security. State strategies vary by historical circumstance, resource endowments, and internal political dynamics, including the influence of trade unions. While Malaysian industrial relations is heavily constrained by the discipline of high exposure to international capital, in China and Korea, major struggles are shaping the future of workplace and national labor market governance. Thus the extent and impact of globalization vary between countries, resulting in similar preoccupations by policymakers yet leading to variable responses and industrial relations outcomes.     

Interests, Institutions and Industrial Relations

In the comparative politics literature there are two main approaches to the impact of international economic change on national policy patterns. The first — new institutionalism — has been very influential in comparative industrial relations scholarship. The second, which focuses on the role of interests, has been less prominent. Comparing industrial relations reform in Australia and New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s, this paper argues that there are a number of limitations to an institutionalist approach and outlines a framework for the comparative study of the impact of international economic change on national patterns of industrial relations which integrates both institutionalist and interest‐based approaches.     

Research Note: Identifying the Invisible Colleges of the British Journal of Industrial Relations: A Bibliometric and Social Network Approach

The academic field of industrial relations has gone through much change in the last 20 years. On account of the rapid decline in union membership in the USA and the UK, industrial relations, which historically has focused on the employment relationship, has been searching for a new intellectual base. By conducting a bibliometric analysis of the journal British Journal of Industrial Relations (BJIR), we uncover the intellectual bases for that publication outlet for two time periods, 1986–1995 and 1996–2005. From the late 1980s to the mid‐1990s, BJIR's articles relied on the economics literature, while in the later period, it moved to the human resource and management journals, authors and articles. The possible explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Privatization, Markets and Industrial Relations in China

Within a context of gradual privatization and rapid marketization in China, this paper draws on detailed research of the perceived impact these have had on the work, status and attitudes of different industrial relations 'actors' within seven enterprises in Guangdong and Shanghai in 1998–9. It will be shown that the main pressure for tightening control over the workplace has come from the development of markets and that privatization has had important but limited catalytic effect in this process. Considerable internal and external constraints restrict the impact of privatization, which stem from China's continued ambivalence towards capitalist market relations.     

Changing Regimes of Workplace Governance,Shifting Axes of Social Mobilization,and the Challenge to Industrial Relations Theory

This article challenges prevailing views about the collapse of the New Deal industrial relations system and the role of the market. It argues that the old system has been replaced not by the market but by an employment rights regime, in which the rules of the workplace are imposed by law, judicial opinions, and administrative rulings, supplemented by mechanisms at the enterprise level that are responsive to the law but also are susceptible to employee pressures, both individual and collective. The emergence of this regime is the product of a shift in the axes of social and political mobilization from mobilization around economic identities rooted in class, industry, occupation, and enterprise to identities rooted in the society outside the workplace: sex, race, ethnicity, age, disability, and sexual orientation. The shift in the axes of mobilization in turn reflects the collapse of the underlying model of social and economic organization upon which the collective bargaining regime was built and more fundamentally a shift in our understanding of the nature of industrial society and its direction of evolution in history. This interpretation poses a challenge to the conceptual tools used in industrial relations to understand the issues of work and to frame the public policy debate. We conclude with some suggestions as to the direction in which we might move to provide an alternative conceptual framework.     

British Managers' Attitudes and Behaviour in Industrial Relations: A Twenty-Year Study

A unique longitudinal study of Britain's managers conducted in 1980, 1990 and 2000 permits comparisons of managerial attitudes and behaviour in industrial relations over twenty years. We find clear evidence of the relationship between macro‐level political and economic movements of the period from 1980 up until the late 1990s on managerial attitudes, the impact of changes in power relations and the ‘lag effect’ of institutions. The most unexpected findings are the modest rise of managerial unionism in the 1990s and the limited evidence of the replacement of collective bargaining by either individual or group involvement or by employee financial participation.     

From Bermondsey to Canary Wharf: The Social Context of Change in Industrial Relations, 1880–2000

This paper presents evidence on some of the key variables that have determined the economic status of different groups in the working population. Economic status is set by the level and security of real income and consumption. These are themselves determined by access to resources in the areas of the labour market, public services and social security, and in housing. The paper reviews the period between 1880 and 1990, and puts forward the likely situation in the year 2000. The century began with an agenda set by the problems of falling real incomes and poverty. It is likely to end with the problems of economic and demographic ageing as the main focus.     

Variable Pay,Industrial Relations and Foreign Ownership: Evidence from Germany

We use a representative sample of German establishments to show that those with foreign ownership are more likely to use performance appraisal, profit‐sharing and employee share ownership than those with domestic ownership. Moreover, we show that works councils are associated with an increased probability of using each of the three practices when under domestic ownership but not when under foreign ownership. These results inform the ongoing debate over institutional duality, the extent to which foreign firms adopt uniform practices independent of local institutions, and the extent to which they adapt and participate in those local institutions.     

Industrial Relations and Economic Performance

Postwar concern about our industrial relations system has been dominated by three issues: pay; performance at workplace, company and national level; and industrial action. In each case the focus of interest is the link between the institutions, procedures and processes of the system and the outcomes that it generates. This paper evaluates evidence on these three issues for the last quarter-century, since the publication of the Donovan Report in 1968. Special attention is given to information from successive WIRSs. The evidence suggests that (i) industrial action is of minor importance; (ii) the industrial relations system can no longer be held to stymie company performance; (iii) the pay-jobs trade-off is as intractable as ever.     

Root Metaphor in Industrial Relations: A Reply to Tom Keenoy

Where Keenoy takes liberties, I try to correct him. I did not say that the 'old' industrial relations has been superceded by the 'new'. Nor did I suggest a Kuhnian paradigm shift. Nor did my argument hinge upon these things happening. Quite the opposite, in fact. The root metaphors are a problem precisely because little is scientifically decided between 'old' and 'new'. Once such wrinkles have been ironed out, Keenoy and I seem to agree on a great deal. His conclusion, however, is more comforting than mine.