ABSTRACT
In this chapter we examine a number of different ways that can be used to portray the employment relationship. These are: the legal view of the employment contract; the traditional industrial relations perspective; and social exchange theory. While each one has its own conception of the most important features of the relationship, none of them embraces all of its aspects and so all of them have their own inherent advantages and limitations. This discussion is used to offer a re-conceptualisation of the employment relationship, from which is derived a typology of relationships that was used to categorise the organisations investigated in this study.
