The Evolution of the Modern Workplace

by Brown, William; Bryson, Alex; Forth, John; Whitfield, Keith

• ISBN13: 9781107405042
• ISBN10: 1107405041
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-07-19
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

The last twenty-five years have seen the world of work transformed in Britain. Manufacturing and nationalized industries contracted and private services expanded. Employment became more diverse. Trade union membership collapsed. Collective bargaining disappeared from much of the private sector, as did strikes. This was accompanied by the rise of human resource management and new employment practices. The law, once largely absent, increasingly became a dominant influence. The experience of work has become more pressured. The Evolution of the Modern Workplace, first published in 2009, provides an authoritative account and analysis of these changes and their consequences. Its main source is the five Workplace Employment Relations Surveys that were conducted at roughly five-year intervals between 1980 and 2004. Drawing on this unique source of data, a team of internationally renowned scholars show how the world of the workplace has changed, and why it has changed, for both workers and employers.

Table of Contents

List of figures

List of tables

List of abbreviations

List of contributors

Preface

Researching the changing workplace

Competition and the retreat from collective bargaining

Trade union decline and the economics of the workplace

Employee representation

Voice at the workplace: where do we find it, why is it there and where is it going?

From industrial relations to human resource management: the changing role of the personnel function

High involvement management

Conflict at work: the changing pattern of disputes

Employees' experience of work

Equality and diversity at work

The changing use of contingent pay at the modern British workplace

Foreign ownership and industrial relations

The public sector in transition

Legal regulation and the changing workplace

Conclusion: the evolutionary process

Technical appendix

Bibliography

Index

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