ABSTRACT
It is widely accepted that managers’ approach to employment relations, often referred to as management style,1 is the result of choices that are influenced by certain constraints (Salamon, 2000; Hollinshead, 1999). The nature of the product and labour markets, organizational status and structure, including size of workplace, and culture are chief among the factors thought to place constraints on managers. Managers, as much as workers and customers, are never truly free agents. We have already noted in Chapter 1 how economic, technical, social, legal and political factors external to the workplace provide boundaries that may constrain managers’ behaviour and actions. We also discussed how managers’ personal frame of reference will inform the choices they make about the strategies, policies and practices they pursue, and why power relationships are integral to this process. Of particular note here is the virtual absence of trade unions to act as a countervailing force to counteract managerial power. The HI sustains a mere 2 per cent trade union density (DTI, 1999).
