CHAPTER TWO
THE STUDY OF EMPLOYMENT
RELATIONS
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Overview








ER is highly practical and compelling in study and practice
General definition – systematic theoretical concepts
Descriptive analysis
Taxonomies as descriptive devices
Rules
Patterns of employment relations
Models in employment relations
Beyond Dunlop
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Introduction
 Highly practical:
‘Everyone who derives an income through work or who
becomes involved in the organisation and management of
employees at work is immersed in the practice of
employment relations’
 Employment relations = organisational performance and
employee well-being
 How should ER be managed on the macro- and microlevels?
 ER is all about compromise between competing ideas
 Compelling as a field of academic study and has practical
applications
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Patterns of employment relations
 We need to systematically analyse
employment relations
 First we have to examine the term
descriptive analysis
– ‘To describe’ is to ‘give an account of’ or ‘state the
characteristics of’ a specific event or instance – but we’re
all different
– It’s all about what facts we accept, and therefore interpret
– Description can be very subjective
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‘Descriptive’ analysis
 While description can be regarded as the first step towards
explanation, it must be accompanied by theory
 Description does not lead to explanation
 Theory = a set of assumptions that can be tested
 Describing patterns of employment relations leads to an
ability to generalise – to understand other events
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Lewins’ five levels of explanation
1. Description – An account of an event or phenomenon from
a particular standpoint, whether it is adopted consciously or
unconsciously
2. Taxonomy – A classification scheme designed for a
particular purpose that groups together events or
phenomena on the basis of similar characteristics
3. Model – A simplification or representation of relationships
between events or phenomena that is designed to provide a
clearer picture of the world
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Lewins’ five levels of explanation
(cont.)
4. Law – A statement of a relationship between two or more
variables that inevitably produces the same outcome, in
terms of events or phenomena
5. Causal theory – A complete answer to the ‘why’ question,
which not only identifies the inevitable relationships
between variables but also provides an account of the
process by which one determines the other
(Lewins 1992, pp.19–27)
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Taxonomies as descriptive
devices
 Taxonomies are classification systems designed to identify
similar properties or characteristics in diverse events, situations
or objects, e.g.
– clothes: ‘whites’ and ‘coloured’
– cancer: ‘malignant’ and ‘benign’
– rules: ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, ‘substantive’ and ‘procedural’
 Taxonomies attempt to move analysis from the specific to the
general
 They also attempt to identify commonalities
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Taxonomies – creating order
from chaos
 While taxonomies help bring order from
chaos, they are still largely descriptive –
they do not explain much about why events
or situations occur
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The parties to employment
relations
 We need to identify and describe the parties involved in ER
– Individuals
– Unions
– Employers
– Employer associations
– Government
– The Commission
 Describing the many features of these organisations
(membership, internal governance and structures, goals and
philosophies) is essential to gaining an understanding of ER
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Rules
 Who makes the rules?
– All of the parties can do so,
either individually or in combination
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Rules (cont.)
 There are three main ways that rules may be
made (Flanders 1970):
– Unilateral rule making
creation and enforcement of rules by one,
single, party (e.g. managerial prerogative)
– Bilateral rule-making
joint creation and enforcement of rules by two
parties (e.g. collective bargaining)
– Multilateral rule-making
when three or more parties jointly make and
enforce rules (e.g. the Commission with
employers and unions)
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Rules (cont.)
 Authorship of rule-making is vital
– indicates where relative power lies in the
employment relationship (e.g. high employer
power = low employee power)
– can have important consequences for the
effectiveness of rules in influencing the
behaviour of the parties to the employment
relationship (e.g. more input = greater chance
of acceptance)
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Explaining patterns of
employment relations
 Why do patterns of employment relations
vary in different empirical situations?
– such as across countries, industries,
enterprises
 And why do they change over time?
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Description and explanation
 Explain = ‘make clear’
 ER accused of being ‘excessively descriptive’ and
‘atheoretical’
 The study of ER is said to fail to ‘make clear the cause or
reason for’ observed phenomena or, where explanation
occurs, it remains at the level of the specific phenomenon
rather than being generalised in order to advance theory
 Taxonomies identify commonalities across different
situations or events, helping provide an explanation as to
their causes and consequences
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Beyond description: explanatory
factors and models
 Description leads to taxonomies
 This in turn leads to the
development of
– models
– laws
– causal explanations
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Development of explanatory
models
The first step:
 Identify the reasons why events occur or the factors that are
thought to explain particular empirical situations
 This produces a long list of potential factors, none of which
are specific
 To move beyond this, link potential factors to form a model.
Models are:
‘representations of something that exists in the world.
They do not exist by themselves but, by their simplified
nature, provide a clear picture of the world’
(Lewins 1992, p. 21)
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Models and taxonomies
 Models go beyond taxonomies because
they attempt to link social phenomena
together, thereby indicating relationships
and potential lines of causality
 Models attempt to show, at a highly
simplified level, how various factors affect
each other
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Models in employment relations
Dunlop (1958)
 All ‘industrial relations systems’ are comprised of three main
‘actors’ who interact with each other and produce rules to
regulate behaviour:
– The State
– Employees
– Employers
 Dunlop suggested that industrial relations systems operate
within a larger ‘environment’ or ‘context’, which influences the
rule-making behaviour of the actors
 His work is regarded as being only a model
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Context and agency
 Context
– ‘the surroundings associated with phenomena which help
to illuminate those phenomena’
(Cappelli and Shearer, cited in Johns 2006, p. 386)
or
– ‘stimuli and phenomena that surround and thus exist in
the environment external to the individual’
(Mowbray, cited in Johns 2006, p. 386)
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Context and agency (cont.)
 Agency:
– The capacity of social actors (like individuals and
organisations) to take action as a result of the choices
they make
– Just ‘being’ does not denote acting
 Effective causal explanation can only come about through a
combination of ‘context’ and ‘agency’
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Context and agency cont
 Kochan et al (1986, pp. 13-14):
‘A key premise of our framework is that choice and
discretion of the part of labour, management and government
affect the course and structure of industrial relations systems
… Although environmental pressures are important and
serve as a starting point for discussion of the determinants of
an industrial relations system. These pressures do not strictly
determine industrial relations outcomes. Thus an
understanding of the choices the parties make in any given
period much be informed by an analysis of the structures and
history that constrain those choices’
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More on agency
 We must pay attention to the parties in rule-making in
employment relations
– People
 All have different values, motives and past
experiences
 Because they are all different, would probably make
different choices in the same situation
– Organisations
 Are also all different from each other
 Different purpose, history, governance, goals
 All these factors impact on what response to a given
situation will be chosen
 To explain patterns of employment relations, we must
therefore understand people and their organisations
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More on context
 The most enduring account of the contexts that influence
employment relations was written by Dunlop (1958, p. 9):
‘The actors in an industrial relations system interact in a
setting that includes three sets of givens. These features of
the environment of an industrial relations system are
determined by the larger society and its other sub-systems
and are not explained within the industrial relations system.
These contexts, however, are decisive in shaping the rules
established by the actors in an industrial relations system’
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Dunlop’s ‘interrelated contexts’
 Dunlop identified three ‘interrelated contexts:
1. Technology
2. Market or budgetary constraints
3. Power relations and statutes of the actors
 While widely criticised, these three ‘contexts’ have emerged
and re-emerged many times as being important explanatory
factors in the quest to understand patterns of employment
relations in different nations, industries and enterprises
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Technology, markets and power
 The nature of the technology and the production
process more generally impacts on employment
relations, e.g.
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
fixed or variable workplace
relation of workplace to residence
stability of workforce and operations
size of workgroup
job content
relation of machines to customers
schedules and shifts of the workplace
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Technology, markets and power
(cont.)
 The nature and dynamics of product markets help
to explain the prevailing pattern of employment
relations, e.g.
–
–
–
–
–
–
number of competitors
freedom of entry
standardisation of product
availability of substitute products
sources of supply
consumer demand
 The nature and distribution of power, e.g. role of
the State determines the relative power and status
of the actors
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Beyond Dunlop
 Dunlop added a lot – but his work has flaws:
1. The number of contexts: Only three? There are many
others
2. Neglect of values and culture
3. The link between external contexts and the internal
operation of industrial relations systems
4. The arbitrary separation between the industrial relations
system and other societal ‘sub-systems’
5. Levels of analysis
6. The definition and impact of ‘context’ implies factors
which are beyond the control of the actors in
employment relations
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Beyond Dunlop (cont.)
 Explanations of employment relations must
acknowledge that the parties to employment
relations can have the capacity to influence, as
well as be influenced by, the contexts in which
they operate
 History is a vital context
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An explanatory model of
employment relations
Bringing it all together
1. The neo-institutionalist explanations of employment
relations rest on a pluralist analysis of the employment
relationship
2. Employment relations operate at various levels
– individual employee
– work group
– enterprise
– industry
– national
– international
3. Within each level there are a number of parties who interact
and compete
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An explanatory model of
employment relations (cont.)
4. Any explanation of the resultant rules must take into
account the ‘agency’ of the concerned parties
5. The explanation must also take into account the ‘context’ in
order to achieve a true and reflective answer
6. Each level of ER operates within a number of ‘contexts’
7. There is a hierarchy in levels of analysis
8. The ‘same-level’ contexts include other factors ‘external’ to
employment relations, but at the same level of analysis
9. History is vital
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Summary
 This chapter has been all about theory
 Presented ideas and concepts used in the study of
ER
 Marked difference between ‘description’ and
‘explanation’
 Description is important but must be informed by
theory
 Explanation is a complex exercise and mostly
comes in the form of ‘models’; must combine
‘agency’ and ‘context’
 The study of ER is cross-disciplinary
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