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 Previously unpublished data from the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey 1990 (WIRS3) have provided the first opportunity for systematic analysis and evaluation of employment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.     

Patterns of Continuity and Change in Managerial Attitudes and Behaviour in Industrial Relations, 1980-1990

In this paper, data are reported from a longitudinal study of managers' attitudes and behaviour in industrial relations based on a sample of fellows and members of the British Institute of Management. An account of two surveys, carried out in 1980 and 1990, follows an examination of theories of the managerial role in industrial relations and the presentation of a research model. Managerial attitudes and behaviour are then analysed with respect to views on trade unions, personal commitments to collective representation, collective bargaining, employee participation and involvement and views on the role of government. The findings have an added significance because survey dates roughly correspond with the so-called ‘Thatcher years’. The conclusion is that some major changes in industrial relations have occurred during the decade in question, but there are also substantial continuities which cannot be ‘read off’ directly from the dramatic alterations in the political, economic and legal environment.     

The Involvement of Civil Society Organizations in British Industrial Relations: Extent,Origins and Significance

This article examines the involvement of civil society organizations (CSOs) in UK industrial relations. Organizations of this type, including advocacy, campaigning, identity and community organizations have attracted increasing attention from employment relations scholars in recent years. The study reported in this article demonstrates that CSOs have become increasingly active in the sphere of work and employment, partly in response to trade union decline but also owing to political opportunities, afforded by the labour market policy of the New Labour government. It is claimed that CSOs operate at multiple levels of the industrial relations system and interact with the state, employers and trade unions. They generate significant effects within UK industrial relations and can rightly be judged significant ‘new actors’ on the UK employment scene.     

Comparative Industrial Relations Research: Towards Reversing the Gender Bias

This paper seeks to begin the reversal of the gender bias in comparative industrial relations research which is still focused on comparing and contrasting the regimes that cover mainly male manual workers. There is little systematic evidence on industrial relations practices in private or even public services, for non-manual workers or for atypical workers. These employment areas are central for women's employment and are of increasing importance in the labour market, but few attempts have been made to compare industrial relations regimes by reference to the protection they afford to women. Taking into account industrial relations practice in these areas can change significantly the classification and estimated coverage of collective bargaining systems. By 'mainstrearning' gender issues it also becomes clear that current macroeconomic policy proposals have major gender implications that are ignored in current debates     

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.     

Industrial Relations, Social Pacts and Welfare Expenditures: A Cross-national Comparison

Industrial relations and welfare state are interrelated. On the basis of time‐series data for 20 OECD countries, this paper discusses and tests the impact of industrial relations on social expenditures, including ‘social pacts’ as a means of combining wage moderation and welfare state reforms. The findings suggest that industrial relations have an impact mainly through the differential effects of distinct bargaining systems: a minor impact results from their externalities. The major impact ensues from their differing degrees of politicization, leading to higher expenditures in the case of peak‐level arrangements, as compared to more decentralized systems. Hence, the widely assumed potential of social pacts for welfare state reforms has been exaggerated.     

Industrial Relations Climate,Employee Voice and Managerial Attitudes to Unions: An Australian Study

This article examines how employee voice arrangements and managerial attitudes to unions shape employees' perceptions of the industrial relations climate, using data from the 2007 Australian Worker Representation and Participation Survey (AWRPS) of 1,022 employees. Controlling for a range of personal, job and workplace characteristics, regression analyses demonstrate that employees' perceptions of the industrial relations climate are more likely to be favourable if they have access to direct‐only voice arrangements. Where management is perceived by employees to oppose unions (in unionized workplaces), the industrial relations climate is more likely to be reported as poor. These findings have theoretical implications, and significant practical implications for employers, employees, unions and the government.     

Integration and Dealignment in Public Enterprise Industrial Relations: A Study of British Rail

This paper considers whether a process of dealignment of workplace organizations from the national union and industrial relations system has occurred in British Rail. As a starting point, it is noted that workplace representatives have traditionally been closely integrated with other actors in the system. Integration has been based on the supply of bargaining resources by the national union and other bargaining institutions. If new management industrial relations policies have cut back the supply of these, it is possible that workplace organizations will dealign themselves from the national union. This hypothesis is considered using data obtained from a survey of train drivers' representatives. It is found that there is no evidence for dealignment and that in a significant minority of cases closer rather than weaker links are being forged.     

'Them and Us': Social Psychology and 'The New Industrial Relations'

This article sets out to examine the impact of 'new industrial relations' techniques on worker attitudes to management and to worker-management relations. We found 17 case studies of share schemes, profit-sharing, quality circles and autonomous work-groups which reported relevant evidence on worker attitudes. Although workers often welcome new industrial relations techniques, there is very little evidence of any impact on 'them and us' attitudes. Drawing on social-psychological theories of attitude change, the persistence of 'them and us' attitudes can be explained by the ways in which new industrial relations techniques have been implemented and managed in organisations. Workers have often lacked choice over participation in new schemes; there has been a lack of trust between the parties involved, together with inequality in status and benefits and a lack of institutional support for the schemes among senior management. It is argued that these conditions explain the failure of new organisational initiatives to bring about changes in 'them and us' attitudes.     

Recent Developments in US Industrial Relations

The persistence of economic pressures that first challenged American industry in the 1970s continues to reshape US industrial relations. In an effort to maintain their competitiveness, US firms have developed a panoply of strategies ranging from confrontation and labour control to collaboration and employee empowerment. This essay reviews evidence relating to the development and diffusion of these alternative strategies and their implications for long-term US competitiveness. In this context, the recent work of Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations is discussed as well as a number of public policy options intended to facilitate the implementation of high value-added production systems. The essay concludes with a discussion of the implications of recent trends for industrial relations research.     

Commitment to Company and Union: Evidence from Hong Kong

This article examines the pattern and antecedents of employee commitment to company and union in the Hong Kong context. Findings are consistent with those from the United States. In general, company and union commitment have different antecedents, although the perceived industrial relations climate is a common predictor. Dual commitment is in evidence. Union membership is a function of union commitment. The findings caution against attempts to explain the pattern of Hong Kong industrial relations purely in terms of culture.     

The Individualization of Irish Industrial Relations?

Research claims that industrial relations in greenfield sites in Ireland are commonly individualized. Data from a representative sample of workplaces in Ireland show that no trend towards more pronounced individualization is apparent in the use of HRM practices in new as compared with established workplaces. The state of collective industrial relations in workplaces in general is also shown to be independent of the extent to which individually focused HRM practices have been adopted. The Irish findings, and recent international research, question the idea of individualization as a useful way of understanding the character and dynamics of employment relations in advanced economies.     

The Future Role of Government in Industrial Relations

The future role of government in industrial relations depends on the choices made by employers, workers, and especially governments. Technological change and internationalization have reduced the viability of both Keynesian economics and the mass production system, once integrally related to the industrial relations systems of industrialized democracies after the 1930s. Economic success will require new policies and high-performance systems more appropriate for a global, knowledge-intensive economic environment     

Workplace Industrial Relations under Different Regulatory Systems: A Survey-Based Comparison of Australia and Britain

The focus of the paper is upon the extent to which different national regulatory systems give rise to different institutions and outcomes at the workplace. It uses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey and the third British Workplace Industrial Relations Survey to examine a number of hypotheses which suggest that the different regulatory systems of these countries have produced distinct patterns of industrial relations at the workplace. It is concluded that, while there is substantial evidence that the countries' different regulatory systems have had distinct effect on industrial relations institutions and outcomes, these are not as straight forward as earlier work has suggested.     

International research teams as analysts of industrial business networks

This paper analyzes case studies in the context of industrial business networks, and in particular from the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group) perspective. Two features have been prominent in this research tradition: collaboration in international research teams and interest in business between international customers and their suppliers. Still, researchers seldom discuss the challenges with the international aspects of the research team (as the subject of study) or of the business relations (as the object of study). This paper shows the complications of analyzing international business relations, namely, relations that cross national boundaries, and investigates how an international research team can tackle the challenges of international business network studies. The key contributions are, firstly, to indicate the lack of attention on the methodological requirements and opportunities that the international features create for the analysis of business networks and, secondly, to investigate how collaboration in an international research team may advance the analysis of both international industrial marketing relations and broader business networks.     

Whither Industrial Relations: Does It Have a Future in Post‐Industrial Society?

This article addresses the difficulties that industrial relations is experiencing both as a set of practices and as an intellectual tradition. It traces those difficulties to the changes in the basic structures of industrial society that have undermined the framework which the field grew up around and presumed. But it also relates them to the salience of Keynesian and Marxian thought, which defined the intellectual context in which industrial relations as a field was embedded and the way in which the decline of these traditions has undermined industrial relations as well.     

The Ascendancy of Employment Arbitrators in US Employment Relations: A New Actor in the American System?

In this paper, we survey the underpinnings of the trend towards employment arbitration in the United States, and its implications for the broader industrial relations system. Specifically, we address the question of whether or not employment arbitrators have been substituted for collective bargaining by the government to an extent that warrants their inclusion as an actor in the industrial relations system. We review developments in workplace dispute resolution in the United States, the literature that attempts to explain these developments and posit an assessment of the stability of employment arbitration, and employment arbitrators, as a central feature of the US industrial relations system.     

Counterpoising Collectivism: Performance-related Pay and Industrial Relations in Greenfield Sites

This paper addresses some of the industrial relations ramifications of performance-related pay (PRP) using empirical data from both new and longer established firms in the Republic of Ireland. Particular emphasis is placed on the adoption of PRP systems based on performance appraisal and the implications of such systems for collectivism in industrial relations. The paper concludes that the diffusion of such systems is indicative of increasing employer attempts to individualize the employment relationship and exclude union penetration. It is further argued that such PRP systems, irrespective of the motivation for their establishment, undermine the essence of collectivism and solidarity in industrial relations.     

The Impact of European Integration and German Unification on Industrial Relations in Germany

Can the present turmoil in German industrial relations be attributed to the effects of the Single Market, or to unification, or to other factors? European regulation or legislation may intervene in the German industrial relations system, may remove responsibilities from national actors, or may, by deregulation, induce stronger interdependence between national regimes. Various instances are considered to evaluate the actual and potential EU impact on German industrial relations. The evidence suggests that fears of ‘social dumping’ in the richer member-states are largely unfounded, and that the effects of unification and the recession on German industrial relations are currently more significant than the impact of European integration.