We are pleased to release the ILR Review's special issue on New Theories of Employment Relations. Thanks to guest editors Virginia Doellgast, Matthew Bidwell, and Alexander J. S. Colvin and to all of the contributors. The articles offer important advances in Employment Relations theories, taking into account the radical changes in the political economy over the last several decades. Also featured are commentaries by leading scholars in the field (Janice Bellace, Andrew Minster, Karen Scott, Erin L. Kelly, Thomas A. Kochan, Mari Sako, and Bruce E. Kaufman) and a special book review symposium on how the news media has abandoned coverage of labor issues.
Best
Rose Batt and Lawrence Kahn, the Editors
ILR Review
Volume: 74, Number: 3 (May 2021)
A Special Issue on New Theories in Employment Relations
Articles
New Directions in Employment Relations Theory: Understanding Fragmentation, Identity, and Legitimacy
Virginia Doellgast, Matthew Bidwell, and Alexander J. S. Colvin
Abstract: This article introduces the special issue on New Theories in Employment Relations. The authors summarize the history of employment relations theory and reflect on the implications of recent disruptive changes in the economy and society for new theory development. Three sets of changes are identified: the growing complexity of actors in the employment relationship, an increased emphasis on identity as a basis for organizing and extending labor protections, and the growing importance of norms and legitimacy as both a constraint on employer action and a mobilizing tool. The articles in this special issue advance new frameworks to analyze these changes and their implications for the future of employment relations.
From Bread and Roses to #MeToo: Multiplicity, Distance, and the Changing Dynamics of Conflict in IR Theory
Christine A. Riordan and Alexander M. Kowalski
Abstract: A central assumption in industrial relations theory is that conflict is rooted in an enduring difference between the interests of labor and management. In recent years, the reality of work has changed for many, and scholarship has called attention to overlooked dimensions of conflict that depart from this assumption. The authors account for these developments with the concepts of multiplicity and distance. Multiplicity means that a broad range of actors bring diverse goals, tied to identities and values in addition to interests, to the employment relationship. The competing and fluid motivations that stem from these goals alter how actors individually and collectively name conflict. Distance reflects a growing rift between those who control work and those who labor, rooted in prevailing organizational forms and practices and the transformation of institutions. Distance alters actors' interdependence and their perceived and actual power in addressing conflict. From these observations, the authors derive propositions suggesting directions for research and theory regarding conflict and the institutions through which actors balance goals.
Relational Exchange in Non-union Firms: A Configurational Framework for Workplace Dispute Resolution and Voice
Ariel C. Avgar
Abstract: For much of the 20th century, a sizeable proportion of the workforce in the United States had access to a combination of dispute resolution and voice options through the union grievance process. The vast majority of today's workforce, however, no longer does. The focus of this article is the proliferation of alternative relational exchange models developed in non-union firms. The author develops a theoretical framework proposing variation in the overarching non-union models employed by firms as a function of distinct organizational features and strategies. These models are the product of distinct configurations of voice and dispute-resolution strategies. The author proposes five alternative non-union models, discusses the internal and external characteristics associated with them, and evaluates distinct employer and worker outcomes.
Confronting Race and Other Social Identity Erasures: The Case for Critical Industrial Relations Theory
Tamara L. Lee and Maite Tapia
Abstract: Despite the salience of racism and other "isms" woven into the fabric of US society, there is a dearth of industrial relations (IR) scholarship that engages critical race and intersectional theory (CRT/I) to deeply understand how structural racism and other social identity-based systems of oppression govern labor and employment systems. The authors call for the incorporation of CRT/I into IR to address the erasure of vital counter-narratives and to expand our empirical cases for labor and employment research. Focusing on leading scholarship on worker organizing, the authors confront white dominance in our research questions, methodologies, and analyses to illustrate how traditional "color-blind" and meritocracy-based IR theories lead to the exclusion of relevant knowledge. In an era of heightened public discourse and worker uprisings in response to deep-rooted systemic inequities, critical industrial relations research is vital to the field's relevance and its expertise in explaining the nature and consequences of contemporary labor contestations and their impact on the future of the labor movement.
Identification and Worker Responses to Workplace Change: Evidence from Four Cases in India
Aruna Ranganathan
Abstract: This article uses ethnographic and interview data about four cases in two work settings in India to examine identification as a factor in workers' reactions to workplace change. Novel technology and management practices are frequently introduced into work settings as the world of work changes. Workers tend to cooperate more with some workplace changes than with others. The previous employment relations literature has invoked interests, cultural values, and worker power to explain workers' responses to change. This article introduces an additional factor: whether a change fosters or impairs workers' identification with their work. The author examines identification at three levels-occupational, organizational, and that of the work itself-and finds that workers are more likely to cooperate with workplace change that protects and fortifies their pre-existing sources of identification.
Fissured Employment and Network Bargaining: Emerging Employment Relations Dynamics in a Contingent World of Work
Mark Anner, Matthew Fischer-Daly, and Michael Maffie
Abstract: For decades, direct employment relationships have been increasingly displaced by indirect employment relationships through networks of firms and layers of managerial control. The firm strategies driving these changes are organizational, geographic, and technological in nature and are facilitated by state policies. The resulting weakening of traditional forms of collective bargaining and worker power have led workers to counter by organizing broader alliances and complementing structural and associational power with symbolic power and state-oriented strategies through what the authors term "network bargaining." These dynamics point to the limitations of dominant theories and frameworks for understanding employment relations and suggest a new approach that focuses on a range of direct and indirect work relationships, evolving forms of worker power, and networked patterns of worker–employer interactions.
How Do Employers Choose between Types of Contingent Work? Costs, Control, and Institutional Toying
Chiara Benassi and Andreas Kornelakis
Abstract: The increasing variety of contingent work raises the question of how employers choose between various types of contractual arrangements. The authors review relevant Employment Relations and Strategic HRM literature and distinguish four types of contingent contracts along the dimensions of costs and control. They argue that employers are making choices based on cost and control constraints but are able to reshape these constraints through "institutional toying." Their case study of a German manufacturing plant and R&D center illustrates the mechanisms of institutional toying, which are consistent with the literature on institutional loopholes and exit options. The article develops propositions that explain the diversity of contingent work arrangements and show how toying strategies enlarge the range of options available to employers.
Rethinking the Role of the State in Employment Relations for a Neoliberal Era
Chris Howell
Abstract: Over the past 30 years, state intervention to reshape employment relations has become a generalized feature of contemporary capitalism. A broad neoliberal reconstruction of the market order has gone hand in hand with a more active state. In this article the author argues that liberalization in the sphere of employment relations could not have taken place without a more active state. Building on a regulation theory framework and an elaboration of the concept of neoliberalism as the regulatory infrastructure of emergent growth models, the author examines how the widespread shift from wage-led growth to other forms of growth across the advanced capitalist world has encouraged changes in the role of the state in the regulation of employment relations. These roles include market making, individual employment regulation in place of collective regulation, state-directed social pacts, and redrawing the boundaries between work and non-work. The article concludes with an explanation for continuing variations in employment relations.
The Social Organization of Ideas in Employment Relations
Glenn Morgan and Marco Hauptmeier
Abstract: This article compares how the United States and Germany deregulated labor markets between the 1980s and 2010s in response to the rise of neoliberalism. Building on literature with a focus on ideas and national knowledge regimes, the authors argue that the trajectories of labor market deregulation across the two countries are explained by the distinct social organization of ideas. The latter refers to the actors and institutions involved in the production and dissemination of ideas (including think tanks and public research institutes), their access and ways of communicating to political elites and electorates, levels of shared academic standards across the political divide, and related degrees of competition or cooperation in the production of new knowledge and policy ideas. Moving beyond previous employment relations literature with a focus on institutions and power, the article breaks new theoretical ground by demonstrating how the social organization of ideas is a key intermediary in explaining employment relations change and continuity.
Special Feature
Commentary on New Theories in Employment Relations
Janice Bellace, Andrew Minster, Karen Scott, Erin L. Kelly, Thomas A. Kochan, Mari Sako, and Bruce E. Kaufman
Abstract: ILR Review invited leading scholars to present short comments on paired articles in the preceding Special Issue on New Theories in Employment Relations. They identify key contributions, suggest extensions, and offer broader thoughts on the direction of future theory in employment relations.
Book Review Symposium
No Longer Newsworthy: How the Mainstream Media Abandoned the Working Class, by Christopher R. Martin
Reviews by: Michael Hillard, Brooke Erin Duffy, Phela Townsend, Steven Greenhouse, and Christopher R. Martin
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