DEVELOPING MODELS OF WORKPLACE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
| Published date | 01 July 1971 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1971.tb00856.x |
| Date | 01 July 1971 |
| Author | S. R. Parker,M. H. Scott |
DEVELOPING MODELS
OF
WORKPLACE
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
S.
R.
PARKER
AND
M.
H.
SCOTT*
THIS
article aims to relate the development of theory in industrial relations
at workplace level to past and possible future empirical enquiries.
It
is
maintained that theory and research have very largely gone their own
separate ways and that the relation and feedback between them to which
many writers have paid lip service has seldom been
a
feature of work in this
ficld. In the light of previous research,
a
general model of variables
involved in workplace industrial relations
is
put forward, supplemented by
a
‘path’ model
of
response to proposals for change in the state of the system.
The provisional nature of these models is stressed; they serve as
a
guide
to
research, but may be modified by subsequent research findings.
EXISTING RESEARCH
AND THEORY
It is not our intention here to review research and theory relevant to
the whole field of industrial relations. Instead we propose to
deal
with
only part of the field: the procedures, behaviour and attitudes relating to
workplace
bargaining and the processing of grievances and claims.
It
would be wrong to imagine that ‘within workplace’ industrial relations
can be fully described and understood in isolation from ‘above workplace’
industrial relations. We agree that the student of industrial relations, even
more than the industrial sociologist, cannot allow his investigation to end
at
‘the factory gates’.l But we shall stand
a
better chance of comprehending
all the relevant variables, complexities of structure and of processes if we
focus attention on one part of the total field of industrial relations, in this
case, the workplace level.2 To do this, we need to take into account
variables outside the workplace, but only in
so
far
as
they have a demon-
strable influence on what goes on within the workplace.
Research
In recent years the largest enquiry into workplace industrial relations
was carried out for the Donovan Commission by the Social Survey.
A
*
Senior research officer and research assistant respectively, Social Survey Division
of
the
The views expressed are entirely those
of
the authors in their private capacity and in no way
J.
H.
Goldthorpe, ‘Attitudes and Behaviour
of
Car Assembly Workers’,
British
Journal
of
a
Levels above the workplace are usually: (on the management side) company, industry,
Office
of
Population Censuses and Surveys
commit the policy
of
O.P.C.S.
or any other government department.
Sociology,
Vol. XVII,
No.
3,
September 1966
national and (on
the
union side) area, district, national.
214
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