ABSTRACT
So far a structural perspective on the origins of partnership agreements in the UK life and pensions sector has been adopted. It has concluded thus far that adoption is contingent upon the mediation and interaction of the internal characteristics of management in response to common external stimuli. Thus, despite the seemingly hostile institutional framework in the UK, there remains scope for choice in employment relations at the level of the fi rm (see Gospel and Pendleton, 2003: 571-75). Such explanations are linked to the notion of strategic choice (Child, 1972; Kochan, McKersie and Cappelli, 1984). The assumption is that there exists a range of options open to management in the adoption of specifi c employment relations policies and practices, and a range of responses to such initiatives by workplace trade unions (see Frost, 2000). This chapter builds upon this theme and adopts an action perspective. It draws on the accounts of managers and union offi cials obtained through exploratory and semi-structured interviews from the four case studies to describe the motives underlying the decision to adopt or not to adopt partnership agreements. In combination, these are likely to infl uence the fi nal form and structure of any partnership agreement, which is the focus of the next chapter.
