Understanding Work and Employment Industrial Relations in Transition

by Ackers, Peter; Wilkinson, Adrian

• ISBN13: 9780199259038
• ISBN10: 0199259038
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This collection aims to analyse, advertise, and criticize the contribution of industrial relations to social science understanding. It brings together leading scholars to reconsider the theoretical foundations of industrial relations and its potential contribution to the wider understanding ofwork and economic life, to learn what it can gain from a stronger engagement with these surrounding disciplines and national traditions. The introduction provides a critical, though broadly sympathetic, outline of the development of the mainstream industrial relations tradition. Part One recognizes the interdisciplinary character of industrial relations by concentrating on 'border encounters' with the cognate academic disciplines ofsociology, economics, management, history, psychology, law, politics, and geography. Of particular interest is how far industrial relations has contributed to social science understanding beyond its own narrow borders. Part Two combines a major critical analysis of the American school, with threeshorter discussions of Australia, Europe, and Japan. Part Three looks forward to the potential contribution of industrial relations to our understanding of work, employment, and society by identifying a variety of key dilemmas and debates which call for new interdisciplinary thinking. Finally, thebook ends with a critical reassessment of the industrial relations tradition.

Author Biography

Peter Ackers is Reader in Employment Relations at Loughborough University Business School. Co-author of New Development in Employee Involvement (Employment Department 1992) and co-editor of The New Workplace and Trade Unionism (Routledge 1996), he has published widely in academic journals and edited collections on industrial relations, the sociology of work, and labour history. Adrian Wilkinson is Professor of Human Resource Management at Loughborough University Business School. Co-author of New Development in Employee Involvement (Employment Department 1992), Core Personnel and Development (1996), Managing with TQM (1998), and co-editor of Making Quality Critical (1995), he has published widely in academic journals and edited collections on industrial relations, HRM, and TQM.

Table of Contents

About the Editors	ix
Notes on Contributors	x
Foreword	xii
Brian Towers
Introduction: The British Industrial Relations Tradition---Formation, Breakdown, and Salvage	1	(30)
Peter Ackers
Adrian Wilkinson
Part I. Disciplinary Perspectives
Sociology and Industrial Relations	31	(12)
Ian Roberts
Economics and Industrial Relations	43	(28)
Damian Grimshaw
Jill Rubery
Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations	71	(18)
Nick Bacon
History and Industrial Relations	89	(30)
David Lyddon
Psychology and Industrial Relations	119	(19)
Chris Brotherton
Labour Law and Industrial Relations	138	(23)
Keith Ewing
Politics and Industrial Relations	161	(15)
Roderick Martin
Geography and Industrial Relations	176	(19)
Andrew Herod
Jamie Peck
Jane Wills
Part II. Comparative Perspectives
Industrial Relations in North America	195	(32)
Bruce Kaufman
Industrial Relations in Australia	227	(15)
Russell Lansbury
Grant Michelson
Industrial Relations in Continental Europe	242	(23)
Carola Frege
Part III. Future Directions---Issues and Arguments
Consumer Capitalism and Industrial Relations	265	(13)
Marek Korczynski
Trade Unions and Industrial Relations	278	(27)
Edmund Heery
Women and Industrial Relations	305	(11)
Anne-Marie Greene
Marxism and Industrial Relations	316	(9)
Gregor Gall
Post-Modernism and Industrial Relations	325	(12)
John Eldridge
The Future of Industrial Relations	337	(22)
Paul Edwards
Index	359