Management Research News: Volume 13 Issue 6
Table of contents
Steel: A Classic Case of Industrial Relations Change in the 1980s
Paul BlytonIn tracking the changes occurring within British industrial relations and labour utilisation in the 1980s, the steel industry offers something of a classic case. Prior to this…
Owning a Bus Company: Yorkshire Rider Busworkers and the Employee Share Ownership Plan
Keith ForresterOne of the options that has recently emerged as a means of countering some of the harsher consequences of de‐regulation within the bus industry has been Employee Share Ownership…
Sectoral Dynamics and Changing Managerial Practice: The Advent of Computer Aided Design in the UK Traction Engineering Industry
Martin HarrisRecent social‐scientific work on the implications of the new production technologies suggests that the adoption of computer aided design (CAD) in manufacturing organisations…
Who Wants Harmonisation?
John HassardIn an ideal world harmonisation would be a good idea. So why should there be any resistance to it?
The Price Waterhouse Cranfield Project on HRM in Europe: The First Findings of the 1990 Survey
Len Holden, Ariane HegewischEffective human resource policies are now seen as central to business decision making. In particular, European and global diversification, whether by merger, acquisition, alliance…
Flexibility Bargaining in Manufacturing: A Review of Developments
Phil JamesFlexibility has been one of the most debated concepts over the last decade. Yet there remains considerable disagreement about the scale and significance of the developments that…
Human Resource Management Policies and the Retention of Technical Professionals in Electronics
Carol Jones, Gordon CauserThe 1980s saw considerable debate about the nature and extent of skills shortages in the IT and engineering sectors, particularly in the increasingly competitive labour markets of…
Some Theoretical and Conceptual Issues in the Study of Employment Relations in the Small Service Sector Firm
John Kitching, Robert Blackburn, James CurranIndustrial relations researchers have typically directed their attention towards large manufacturing firms to the neglect of the small business. This situation is becoming…
‘New Look’ Employee Relations: The View from the Inside
Jim Lowe, Nick OliverRecent years have seen traditional management practice questionned in many areas — in terms of personnel, manufacturing, buyer‐supplier relations and even accounting practice. In…
Close to the Customer: Employee Relations in Superstores
Mick MarchingtonThere is little doubt that the economic, political and legal context within which employee relations takes place has altered substantially over the course of the past decade. What…
Trade Union Ballots and Collective Bargaining in the 1980s
Rod Martin, Roger Undy, Patricia Fosh, Paul Smith, Hugh MorrisThe paper reports a major part of the results of a research project on trade union ballots in the 1980s, concerned with the role of ballots in collective bargaining. The project…
Enterprise Without Unions: Employment Relations in Non‐Union Firms
Ian McLoughlin, Stephen GourlayNon‐unionism and non‐union firms have been an increasing focus of interest since the early 1980s, and indeed for some constitute an emerging model of employee relations which…
The Impact of Privatisation on Industrial Relations in the Water Industry
Stuart OgdenThe Government's privatisation programme has had a number of objectives. Moreover the relative importance of objectives has changed over time. Bishop and Kay (1988) for example…
Assessing the Flexible Firm
Peter ProwseThis paper will discuss the issues of internal flexibility in an organisation and will analyse whether the Institute of Manpower studies model of the flexible firm can be…
Professionalising Management and Managing Professionalisation: British Management in the 1980's
Mike Reed, Peter AnthonyDuring the 1980's there is some evidence to suggest that the British state began to take a rather more pro‐active role in sponsoring and supporting managerial education and…
The Changing Character of Managerial and Technical Roles in the Information Technology Based Enterprise
Howard Rose, Veronica MoleIn the shifting landscape of organisational computing, continuing developments in information technology have potentially major implications for managerial and technical roles…
Enterprise Culture and the Search for Excellence: New Times or Old Hat?
Graeme Salaman, Paul du GayThe central issue pre‐occupying the sociology of work is the origin, nature and implications of changes currently occurring in paid employment. These changes are seen to occur…
Employment Relations in Mature SME's: An Investigation of a Panel of Small Manufacturing Firms in London
David Smallbone, David NorthThis is not a detailed synopsis of the proposed paper since the data collection from which the analysis will be made is still being undertaken.
Decollectivisation of Industrial Relations: Union Exclusion in Theory and Practice
Paul Smith, Gary MortonThe ‘Decollectivisation of Industrial Relations’ is now a significant theme in the policy of the Conservative Government and that of a growing, if still small number, of companies…
Foucault, Power/Knowledge and its Relevance for HRM
Barbara TownleyIn order for any discussion of employment relations or HRM to be of value, debate must be theoretically grounded. Not only this, it must allow for consideration of specific…
The Implications of Internal Labour Market Research for Theory and Methodology in Labour Economics
Keith WhitfieldFor many years the operation of the internal labour market (ILM) was a topic to which economists devoted little attention. Recent years, however, have seen a plethora of research…
Public Sector Higher Education and the Enterprise Culture: A Trade Union Perspective
Marian Whitaker, Babak Sodagar, Jenny RobertsonThis paper reports the experience of a group of lay trade union officers working in the Polytechnic sector over the period since ‘incorporation’ in April 1989. It documents the…
Enterprise Culture and the Restructuring of the UK Clothing Industry
Ruth WintertonThe clothing industries, in common with a number of other sectors of UK manufacturing, have faced intense international competition as clothing production has expanded in…