Forming Effective Employee Information and Consultation: A Five‐Stage Trust and Justice Process
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12382 |
| Published date | 01 January 2021 |
| Author | Tony Dundon,Adrian Wilkinson,Nadia K. Kougiannou |
| Date | 01 January 2021 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 32, 200–218 (2021)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12382
Forming Eective Employee Information
and Consultation: A Five-Stage Trust and
Justice Process
Nadia K. Kougiannou , Tony Dundon1and Adrian Wilkinson2
Human Resource Management Division, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Newton
7th floor, 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ, UK, 1KEMMY Business School, University of
Limerick, Limerick, V94 T9PX, Ireland, and 2Grith Business School, Grith University, 170 Kessels Road,
Nathan, 4111, SE Queensland, Australia
Corresponding author email: nadia.kougiannou@ntu.ac.uk
In this paper we show how trust and justice influence the ecacy of employeeinformation
and consultation (I&C) bodies. Evidence is drawn from a 2-yearqualitative study of I&C
participants in two organizations in the UK. The research builds on Dietz and Fortin’s
conceptual five-stage model of the I&C process to providea more nuanced understanding
of I&C trust and justice outcomes. In particular, wepoint to crucial stages in the process,
and how these influence the eectiveness of I&C mechanisms. Implications fortheory and
practice are discussed.
Introduction
Information and consultation (I&C) bodies are
one of the most common forms of representa-
tive participation in non-union firms (Gollan and
Xu 2007; Van Wanrooy et al., 2013). A key de-
bate concerns trust relations between principal ac-
tors within I&C bodies (Dietz and Fortin, 2007;
Kougiannou, Redman and Dietz, 2015). Several
attempts have been made to assess the eective-
ness of I&C processes (Adam, Purcell and Hall,
2014; Cullinane et al., 2014; Holland et al., 2009),
however, research on the critical issues of trust and
justice between the parties is limited despite their
Acknowledgments: The work presented in this paper
owes a debt to Tom Redman and Graham Dietz, fortheir
guidance and support during the early stages of prepara-
tion. Tom and Graham sadly died before finishing their
work on this paper.We will miss our lively,enjoyable and
always informative discussions with Tom and Graham
on the importance of research for the development and
improvement of working life. Most of all, we miss their
friendship.
centrality to the process (Kougiannou, Redman
and Dietz, 2015).
Broad (1994) found that a mismatch in partic-
ipant expectations led to a fragile voice arrange-
ment and Kessler and Purcell (1996) expressed
concern about the limited attentionpaid to the fac-
tors that make joint consultative processes eec-
tive.However, there is no widely accepted criterion
of whatconstitutes I&C eectiveness. In relation to
evaluating eective participation, Pateman (1970,
p. 69) talks of ‘feelings when subordinates exercise
greater choice over their work responsibilities’;
or when leaders adopt a certain ‘style to facilitate
enhanced social dialogue’. Other studies have ex-
amined a range of potential factors concerning the
operational ecacy of I&C mechanisms, such as
the expertise of employee representatives (Holland
et al., 2009); processes to share decision-making
power (Dundon et al., 2014); informal social dia-
logue (Marchington and Suter, 2013); perceptions
of mutuality between I&C respondents (Cullinane
et al., 2014); and mandatory regulations to widen
the opportunity for employees’ voice (Hall et al.,
2015). While acknowledging that ecacy may be
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Forming Eective Information and Consultation for Employees 201
interpreted dierently by dierent actors, these
studies say very little about the role, or impact,
of trust and justice relationships within the voice
process itself and how such perceptions aect the
ecacy of I&C for the actors involved (Kougian-
nou et al., 2015). Principally, research shows that
I&C is more eective when the parties are active
in the arrangement (Koukiadaki, 2010). Hall et al.
(2013) point to degrees of eectiveness regarding
the scope of decision-making between ‘active
consulters’ (with consultation on strategic orga-
nizational issues), ‘communicators’ (that is, I&C
limited to communications about minor or house-
keeping matters) and ‘defunct committees’ (where
meetings are infrequent and havea short lifecycle).
Importantly, they argue that eective consultation
requires management to use the I&C body as a
consultative forum for strategic organizational
issues, which implies a central role for trust by
sharing power.
Using evidence from two UK organizations
that introduced formal non-union employee
representation (NER) as a result of the European
Information and Consultationfor Employees Reg-
ulations (ICE), this paper builds on and extends
Dietz and Fortin’s (2007) five-stage process model
of trust and justice and possible links to I&C
ecacy. The research addresses three questions:
1. How important are trust and justice percep-
tions in understanding I&C processes?
2. How important are justice judgements in af-
fecting trust among the parties to I&C ar-
rangements?
3. How do trust and justice perceptions shape
the dierent stages of the I&C process in
terms of its eectiveness?
The paper makes a number of distinctivecontri-
butions. Empirically, we show that specific stages
in the model of trust and justice have an im-
pact on the eectiveness of consultation. Further-
more, we engage in several conceptual debates,
including labour–management cooperation (Dob-
bins and Dundon, 2017; Johnstone and Wilkin-
son, 2018), business model practices (Lange et al.,
2015) and the value of case study context and the-
ory (Wood and Budhwar, 2014).
The paper is structured as follows. We first
discuss the literature on NER, employee voice
regulation, trust, power and justice perceptions
for I&C ecacy. We then report the methodology
employed and the research setting, beforepresent-
ing the findings. Finally, the implications of the
findings for theory development and I&C practice
are discussed.
NER and ICE regulations
Managerial fears about unionism can generate
an ideological bias that shapes non-union voice
(Gall and Dundon, 2013). Similarly, unions may
fear that NER can undermine union recognition
(Gollan and Wilkinson, 2007). Of significance
is the power interplay between management and
employees, which shapes I&C in non-union con-
texts. In this regard, there is the apriorirationale
that employers will dominate power relations in
the absence of a union. However, power is not
necessarily a zero-sum game (Dundon et al.,
2018). First, managers may choose to share
some decision-making authority with non-union
representatives: this is the notion of ‘power to’
leverage positivechange, for example through joint
problem-solving forums. In contrast is the idea of
‘power over’, where one party (management) co-
erce another party (workers)to accept change they
would otherwise not consider in their interests.
Pateman’s (1970, p. 69) classic text explains that
managers can create the ‘feeling that participation
has taken place’ when, in reality, decision-making
remains the preserve of management: what she
describes as ‘pseudo-participation’.
A key issue is that the NER voice tends to be set
against an assumed ideal type of strong eective
union voice, rather than seeing I&C as covering
a range of positions. Equally, what is regarded as
eective for one group (e.g. employers) may be
less relevant to another agency (e.g. unorganized
workers). ‘Managerially sponsored’ NER tends to
be treated sceptically by scholars (Cullinane et al.,
2014, p. 812), identifying limitations in power and
autonomy for employees (Butler, 2005) and being
seen as focusing more on information provision
with minimal employee influence (Upchurch
et al., 2006). While involvement or consultation
are weaker forms of voice than collective bar-
gaining or co-determination, bargaining does not
always suggest that parties have equal power, so
outcomes can be imposed or unilaterally deter-
mined (Inversi, Buckley and Dundon, 2017). As
Gollan et al. (2015, p. 7) comment:
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