Can there be non‐union forms of workplace partnership?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425450510591611 |
| Date | 01 June 2005 |
| Pages | 289-306 |
| Published date | 01 June 2005 |
| Author | Graham Dietz,John Cullen,Alan Coad |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Can there be non-union forms of
workplace partnership?
Graham Dietz
Durham Business School, University of Durham, Durham, UK
John Cullen
Management School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, and
Alan Coad
The Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham,
Birmingham, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore a number of issues pertaining to the
conceptualisation, operationalisation, feasibility and effectiveness of workplace partnership
arrangements in a non-unionised setting.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses the most common definitions of
partnership to discern whether scope exists for non-unionised forms. It then presents a detailed
case study, based on 38 semi-structured interviews with 29 interviewees, inside a non-unionised
company to analyse whether its people management arrangements conform with the definitions
presented, and to examine the employees’ experience of those arrangements.
Findings – The paper notes that most partnership definitions can accommodate non-unionised
forms, if the arrangements for people management inside such firms meet certain standards on
employee voice mechanisms and the exchange of mutual gains. The evidence from the case study
suggests that its unusual policies and practices do conform with a viable model of non-unionised
partnership – albeit with some reservations. The benefits and concerns are discussed in the paper.
Research implications/limitations – The paper presents a credible definition and observable
operationalisation of partnership for researchers to adopt. It encourages future research on the extent
to which so-called “partnership” organisations, including non-union enterprises, comply and suggests
comparative research between paired unionised and non-unionised cases. However, it is limited to one
case study.
Originality/value – The paper’s primary value is in its extension of the partnership debate beyond
its current “union-only ghetto” into examining non-unionised forms, as well. The case study is also
unique in the literature as an example of non-unionised partnership.
Keywords Partnership,Non-unionism, Organizational culture,United Kingdom, Clothing
Paper type Case study
Introduction
During the 1990s the idea of developing “partnership” in British workplaces received
warm endorsements from the New Labour government (DTI, 1999), ACAS (1999), as
well as the TUC (1999) and most major trade unions. All adopted partnership as their
official policy position on workplace relations (though recently there have been signs of
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
The authors wish to thank the managing director, Peter Beeby, and everyone at Sportasia for
their co-operation in this research, as well as Anne Keegan and Elaine Farndale for helpful
feedback on earlier drafts.
Non-union
workplace
partnership?
289
Employee Relations
Vol. 27 No. 3, 2005
pp. 289-306
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425450510591611
its star starting to wane among the so-called “awkward squad” of new trade union
leaders: see Morgan, 2004; Woodley, 2004). More qualified support even came from
employers’ bodies such as the CBI (see Taylor, 1997), and the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development (CIPD, 1998, p. 8).
That each can have found something in the idea to embrace is an indication of
partnership’s considerable rhetorical appeal, with its “connotations of co-operation for
mutual gain” (Tailby and Winchester, 2000, p. 374), but it also po ints to its “inherent
ambiguity” (Bacon and Storey, 2000, p. 409).
One such ambiguity concerns the identity of the “partners” in this relationship. In
particular, who or what might constitute the “partner” body for an organisation’s
employees? The assumption in the academic literature on partnership, dominated as it
is by research and commentary conducted within an industrial relations framework,
has been that any partnership arrangement worthy of the name must involve an
independent representative body acting on the workforce’s behalf (i.e. a trade union).
Thus, the “partnership” relationship is considered to be between the organisation’s
management team and the recognised trade union(s). Indeed, partnership has been
examined almost exclusively according to its impact on trade unions (Claydon, 1998;
Gall, 2001; Geary and Roche, 2003; Haynes and Allen, 2001; Heaton et al., 2002; Heery,
2002; Kelly, 1996; Martinez-Lucio and Stuart, 2002; Oxenbridge and Brown, 2002;
Terry, 2003; Wills, 2004). However, the main advocates of partnership in the 1990s, the
Involvement and Participat ion Association, not to menti on the New Labour
government, the CBI and CIPD, prefer to conceive of partnership as collaborative,
mutually beneficial relations between an employer’s management team and its
workforce primarily, with the latter represented by a trade union if present.
Reconfigured in this manner, “partnership” is a state of workplace affairs that is
attainable – in theory, at least – in all settin gs, unionised and non-unionised alike, and
hence has a potentially far broader appeal as a model of employment relations.
Discussion of the latter phenomenon, however, is almost non-existent (see IPA, 1997,
p. 17; Industrial Relations Services (IRS), 2000, pp. 35-41; Terry, 2001). This paper sets
out to address this gap.
We examine three questions in this paper. Firstly, what is workplace partnership?
Secondly, can a non-unionised organisation design and conduct its people management
processes in a recognisably “partnership” manner? Thirdly, if it can, what would it be
like to work in such a place? We explore these issues through a content-ana lysis of the
most commonly used definitions of partnership to see whether compliance is
conceivable in a non-unionised setting, and then through an in-depth case study of the
practical implementation of a “partnership” inside a non-unionised firm.
A definition of partnership
Although no widely-held standard definition exists for workplace partnership, most
commentators understand it to mean a programme for managing workplace
employment relations based on joint problem solving among the various “partners”
which delivers mutually beneficial outcomes for all (for detailed reviews see Ackers
and Payne, 1998; Kelly, 2004; Sparrow and Marchington, 1998; Tailby and Winchester,
2000; Terry, 2003). Dietz (2004, p. 7), following Guest and Peccei (2001, p. 208), argues
that a genuine “partnership” organisation should be able to point to the established and
observable presence of a “bundle” of specific principles and practices for managing its
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