Employment Relations

Conceptual Overview

Although the study of ER focuses on the regulation of work, it must also take account of the wider economic and social influences on the relative power of capital and labor, and the interactions among employers, workers, their collective organizations, and the state. A full understanding of ER requires an interdisciplinary approach that uses analytical tools drawn from several academic fields, including accounting, economics, history, law, politics, psychology, sociology, and other elements of management studies.

One can focus on ER at various levels, including the workplace; enterprise; industry; locality, state, or province; the nation; or at an international level. There is much to be gained from adopting an internationally comparative approach to ER. However, this requires not only insights from several disciplines, but also knowledge of different national contexts. Some scholars distinguish between comparative and international studies in this field. Comparative ER may involve describing and systematically analyzing two or more countries. By contrast, international ER involves exploring institutions and phenomena that cross national boundaries, such as the labor market roles and the behavior of inter-governmental organizations (e.g., International Labor Organization), multinational enterprises (MNEs), and unions. This is a useful distinction, but this entry inclines toward a broader perspective whereby internationally comparative ER includes a range of studies that traverse boundaries between countries.

There are several reasons why it is beneficial to study internationally comparative ER. Such a focus provides a contribution to one's knowledge about ER in different countries and a source of models for policy development. Increased economic interconnectedness associated with globalization has produced a greater need for information about ER practices in other countries and has led to a resurgence of interest in internationally comparative ER. Such comparative analysis offers possibilities for theoretical development and an understanding of the impact of globalization on national patterns of ER.

Critical Commentary and Future Directions

Keith Sisson argues that the fields of study contributing to ER could be criticized for being overly descriptive, and that academics in these fields have generally not developed straightforward causal explanations of relevant phenomena. The descriptive nature of and relative lack of theory in the study of IR and HRM reflect the practitioner and policy orientation of these subjects.

Thomas Kochan has proposed an analytical frame-work guiding research in ER in terms of four important enterprise-level employment practices:

• 1.
  Changes in work organization due to the introduction of new technologies and the adoption of new competitive strategies (such as decentralization or team systems); linked to these changes are new work rules and patterns of employee participation within enterprises;
• 2.
  Changing patterns of skill acquisition and training to match the needs of enterprises; this takes account of the shifting balance between the public and private provision of education and training;
• 3.
  New pay systems, which affect many categories of employees; and
• 4.
  Staffing, employment security, and recruitment, which affect the way in which enterprises adjust their workforce when faced with cyclical or long-term structural changes in demand for their output.

The framework used to explain variations in these employment practices includes two competing hypotheses for the degree of transformation in ER. One hypothesis stresses the importance of the persistence of institutional structures (at the national, industry, and enterprise levels), which limit the discretion of enterprises and other actors in ER. This can be referred to as the institutionalist ER perspective, and is discussed below. An alternative hypothesis emphasizes the range of strategic choices available to enterprises and the pressures associated with international competition and technological changes.

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