The Conditions Promoting Compromise in the Workplace
| Author | Jacques Bélanger,Paul Edwards |
| Date | 01 December 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00643.x |
| Published date | 01 December 2007 |
The Conditions Promoting Compromise
in the Workplace
Jacques Bélanger and Paul Edwards
Abstract
A previous article developed a framework to understand workplace co-
operation. We now elaborate on the key structuring conditions (technology,
product markets and institutional regulation) generating different patterns and
illustrate from field research how these different workplace regimes develop.
Conditions generating positive and sustainable outcomes for both capital and
labour are feasible but rare; stronger ‘beneficial constraints’ are needed if they
are to be made more frequent. This article provides an alternative to current
interpretations of labour–management co-operation in the industrial relations
literature.
1. Introduction
A founding principle of industrial relations is that conflict is a fundamental
characteristic of the employment relationship (Kochan 1998). Yet
co-operation is also ever present, as analysts basing themselves in a conflict-
based approach clearly recognize (Hyman 1989). The labour contract is
necessarily indeterminate and principles of conflict and co-operation are
worked out within the labour process (Smith 2006). The fact that conflict and
co-operation are intertwined has been developed formally by Wright (2000),
who discusses conditions under which capital and labour will find it in their
interests to co-operate with each other. He has subsequently elaborated the
point, in relation to the objectives of co-operation (Wright 2004). A conven-
tional economic view would be that there is a single objective, efficiency,
which capital and labour may share as a goal, even though they may differ as
to the best way of achieving it. However, Wright argues that there can be
different conceptions of efficiency, with capital stressing profit and personal
wealth while labour favours ‘comprehensive economic performance’ includ-
ing the quality of life.1There will thus be shared interests in performance but
differing views as to what it constitutes.
Jacques Bélanger is at the Département des relations industrielles, Université Laval. Paul
Edwards is at the Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick.
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00643.x
45:4 December 2007 0007–1080 pp. 713–734
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
A previous article in this journal laid out a formal framework to identify
different ways in which shared interests are generated and conflict and
consent are organized at the level of the workplace (Edwards et al. 2006). It
offered a matrix generating twelve ideal-typical patterns. The present objec-
tive is to explain the conditions leading to one pattern or another, that is, the
relevant sources of variation. We identify three sets of factors that shape
workplace relations. These factors — the product market, technology and
institutional regulation — have featured in explanatory accounts for many
years (e.g. Batstone 1988; Dunlop 1958). Their present use is four-fold.
First, we base them in a formal model of types of workplace relations; the
approach can thus make some claim to show that the factors cover the
potential range of circumstances and are thus comprehensive. Previous
efforts identified the factors but used them in a more eclectic fashion to
address a particular empirical question (e.g. Mars 1982). Second, we explain
in detail the nature of the factors and how they work. Third, such analysis of
causal conditions seems to have lost favour recently; studies of teamwork, for
example, commonly focus on generic features rather than identifying and
explaining its different forms (e.g. Benders and van Hootegem 1999; Sewell
1998). Finally, we revisit previous empirical inquiries to show the explanatory
power of the factors in comparative context — as opposed to the inquiries
themselves, which focused on each case in its own right. By looking at
contrasting work situations where the authors have conducted direct obser-
vation and interviews over the years, we ask why social compromise exists in
some workplaces but not in others. Why, in other words, do so many agents
fail even to consider their ‘common interests’ when their counterparts else-
where develop workplace compromises?
Section 2 of this article establishes some of the conceptual tools to address
conflict and co-operation, insisting in particular on the necessity of going
beyond the standard notion of ‘interests’. Section 3 draws on existing litera-
ture, from both labour process theory and more institutional traditions, to
throw light on the key sets of conditions structuring workplace relations.
Drawing from previous field studies, Section 4 illustrates how any workplace
regime represents a particular combination of these conditioning factors,
with due consideration for agency, choices and strategies. Section 5 discusses
the implications of this framework and its relevance to current debates.
2. Understanding workplace regimes: beyond the notion of ‘interests’
Co-operation is not the opposite of conflict. Rather, achieving co-operation
is a necessarily uncertain and unstable process. This insight was well under-
stood in pluralist writings, notably those of Allan Flanders. While most
orthodox accounts conceived efficiency in terms of managerial ‘rationality’,
Flanders’s observation and analysis led him to stress that simply enjoining
management to reassert more firmly their ‘prerogatives’ would only make
matters worse from their own perspective. Hence, his most celebrated state-
ment, based on a particular understanding of workplace compromise:
714 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007.
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