Management of Industrial Relations 1 Flashcards
Exam
What is Employment Relations?
The study of formal and informal rules which regulate the employment relationship and the social processes which create and enforce these rules.
It includes Industrial Relations and Human Resources
Why study employment relations?
- Work is a fundamental feature of life
- It provides a focus on ensuring equity and welfare to employees and balancing (where possible) economic efficiencies of entities.
What is the difference between ER, IR, and HR?
ER and IR are the same - IR has some negative connotations however.
HR relates to organisational leadership and policies in place to psychologically fulfilling the needs of employees.
What are the 4 theoretical approaches to employment relationships?
- Neoclassical
- Human Resource Management
- Marxism
- Employment relations
What is the Neoclassical theoretical approach?
- Interested in market transactions and neglects what happens in a firm
- Employees are free to negotiate their own contract with employers
- Assumes employers and employees are equal in terms of economic power, legal expertise, and protection
- It is termed the ‘egoist’ theory of ER
What is the HRM theoretical approach?
- Interested in psychological and organisational behaviour combined with an emphasis on ‘strategic fit’ between HR and business
- Dual focus of ‘unitarist’ theory of ER
- Conservative and pro-management
What is the Marxism theoretical approach?
- Focuses on class struggle and control
- Two features of ER under capitalism:
1. Machinery, tools etc are owned by one class
2. labour power must be purchased - Radical and anti-management
What is ‘theory’?
- ‘an attempt to account for a given phenomenon, that is, to show what, how and/or why is is’
- helps understand the world of employment relations
What are Lewins five levels of explanation?
- Description
- Taxonomy
- Model (a representation of relationships between events or phenomena to provide a clearer picture of the world)
- Law (a statement of ta relationship between two or more variables that inevitably produce the same outcome)
5 Causal theory
What is description?
- an account of an event or phenomenon from a particular standpoint
- can be very subjective depending on persons standpoint
What is taxonomy?
- a classification scheme that groups together events or phenomena on the basis of similar characteristics
- e.g. rules: informal and formal
What is causal explanation?
- a complete answer as to the ‘why’ question
- a complete causal explanation is rarely reached
What is a rule?
A principle or condition governing conduct and action
What are 3 types of ‘rule makers’
- Unilateral rule-making (created and enforced by a single person)
- Bilateral rule-making (created and enforced by two parties)
- Multilateral rule-making (created and enforced by three or more parties)
What is Dunlop’s ER model?
3 actors
- the State
- the Employees
- The Employers