ABSTRACT
A constructive approach to management focuses on helping workers to achieve these personal goals. It places the emphasis on providing clear goals and personal resources that help workers satisfy these motivations while increasing output. Attempts to enhance industrial learning can be undermined by union-management relations. Bratton (2001) studied attempts to enhance workplace learning in the Canadian pulp and paper industry, and found that workers perceived the learning of new skills as a threat to job security and control. This presents a paradox, as workplace learning should actually increase worker flexibility and employability. But this study revealed that workers felt so threatened that they walked off the job. In this instance, there was an attempt to increase multi-skilling - for example, a pipe fitter would learn how to do some tasks normally done by welders. This blurring of job boundaries meant that other people would learn how to do their jobs, and they realized that this could undermine job security.
