ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to consider the analytical purchase of the concept of ‘industrial relations’ and the explanatory power of its key expressions. Industrial relations (IR), conceived in narrow terms as a study of the institutions and processes of ‘joint regulation’, is increasingly regarded as an outmoded residue of modernity and industrialism. Developments in managerial thinking, such as human resource management (HRM), allegedly constitute a serious challenge to IR as a ‘discipline’. Godard and Delaney, for instance, regard HRM as a ‘new industrial relations paradigm’ replacing ‘research on unions and collective bargaining as the field’s core’ (cited in Bacon, 2003: 72). The postulated eclipse of IR by HRM is premised on an unduly restricted definition of employee relations. Rather than repeat the detail of HRM’s impact on ‘conventional’ IR, the focus of this chapter is principally on the key features of a broader conception of IR. The latter contradicts many of the cosy assumptions about strategic integration, employee ‘involvement’, ‘high commitment’ management, and so on found in the HRM literature. In contrast to this literature, which is driven by an employer’s agenda, the approach adopted here highlights the uncertainties, contradictions and tensions associated with the realignment of the local and the global, the shifting balance between incorporation and marginalization in the labour market, and the changing links between capital accumulation and social regulation. The chapter commences with an outline of the employment relationship as a historically contingent exchange relation that is socially embedded and dependent on institutional mediation for its reproduction. It then examines the ‘crisis’ of IR in practice, briefly considers theoretical critiques of IR by subjectivist and action-orientated approaches, and outlines some of the pitfalls in HRM as revealed by a focus on labour regulation. The chapter concludes by highlighting some of the challenges confronting the future of IR research.
