This collection examines the significance of partnership-based approaches to the modernization of employment relations. Drawing from the work of leading researchers the contemporary interest in partnership is situated within an historical, political and practical context. Particular attention is given to exploring and understanding the practices and experiences of partnership at the workplace.

This collection analyses the contribution of industrial relations to social science understanding.

The purpose of this book is to evaluate the debate on partnership, using original research data. Samuel provides a novel categorisation with which to synthesise and clarify a highly diverse literature on labour-management partnership, thus helping to refine the contemporary partnership debate. Secondly, he clarifies the circumstances under which ‘effective’ labour-management partnership is possible, while simultaneously elaborating why the achievement of ‘mutual gains’ is highly improbable in a liberal-market context. Thirdly, the book presents an integrated analysis of the interplay between macro-, meso- (industry) and micro-level factors. Fourthly, the research design enables the study to go beyond the case studies to make defendable empirical generalizations at the level of the industry. Finally, it advances a theoretical explanation of labour-management partnerships in ‘liberal market’ economies by bridging two opposing neo-institutional positions in the social sciences.

After a decade of 'union organizing' in Britain, the time has come to make a thoroughgoing assessment of it. This book evaluates the efficacy of the union organising in terms of union strategies, tactics, styles and resources, and assesses the impact of differing regulatory regimes on union organizing.

Employee participation encompasses the range of mechanisms used to involve the workforce in decisions at all levels of the organization - whether direct or indirect - conducted with employees or through their representatives. In its various guises, the topic of employee participation has been a recurring theme in industrial relations and human resource management. One of the problems in trying to develop any analysis of participation is that there is potentially limited overlap between these different disciplinary traditions, and scholars from diverse traditions may know relatively little of the research that has been done elsewhere. Accordingly in this book, a number of the more significant disciplinary areas are analysed in greater depth in order to ensure that readers gain a better appreciation of what participation means from these quite different contextual perspectives. Not only is there a range of different traditions contributing to the research and literature on the subject, there is also an extremely diverse sets of practices that congregate under the banner of participation. The handbook discusses various arguments and schools of thought about employee participation, analyzes the range of forms that participation can take in practice, and examines the way in which it meets objectives that are set for it, either by employers, trade unions, individual workers, or, indeed, the state. In doing so, the Handbook brings together leading scholars from around the world who present and discuss fundamental theories and approaches to participation in organization as well as their connection to broader political forces. These selections address the changing contexts of employee participation, different cultural/ institutional models, old/'new' economy models, shifting social and political patterns, and the correspondence between industrial and political democracy and participation.

Suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the areas of industrial and employment relations, personnel and human resource management, this work offers an original, accessible, and critical approach to understanding employment relations.

We live in a 'corporate world' in which powerful business corporations shape and influence the activities of nation states, their national economies and their social relations. But what is it that moulds the activities of the corporations themselves? Do some societies have 'styles' of regulation that enable corporations to operate freely in the pursuit of certain interests, where others are more constrained? And, if so, are Australian companies more inclined to pursue the financial interests of shareholders and owners at the expense of employees and creditors? Corporate governance may be guided in the pursuit of particular interests by many influences, including law, politics, capital and labour and other pressure groups. How these competing pressures balance out varies enormously from state to state. Bringing together the original research by lawyers, political economists and industrial relations scholars, Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate Governance and Employees is a first Australian contribution to these complex issues.