ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the basic assumption that labour markets are in need of some kind of regulation. Workers are asymmetrically dependent on employers, and that makes labour inseparable from its seller. Workers’ livelihoods and well-being are closely connected to maintaining an employment relationship with their employer. The labour market is seen as a political as well as an economic forum. The state is regarded as an independent actor and not subordinate to the market. The dominant approach in Anglophone employment relations analysis for much of the post-war period assumed that common technologies and cross-national markets would create convergence towards a common model of employment regulation. The chapter aims to contribute therefore towards a more inter-disciplinary and theoretically informed analysis of the issues and debates in comparative research in employment relations. The focus on firms and market forces remained but was modified by an action theoretical extension of Dunlop’s systems approach.
