The Many Meanings of Co‐Operation in the Employment Relationship and Their Implications
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
| Author | Mark Bray,John W. Budd,Johanna Macneil |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12473 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12473
58:1 March 2020 0007–1080 pp. 114–141
The Many Meanings of Co-Operation in
the Employment Relationship and Their
Implications
Mark Bray, John W. Budd and Johanna Macneil
Abstract
Co-operation in the employment relationship continues to be a widely lauded
goal, but academics, practitioners and policy makers rarely define the concept or
analyse systematically its variants. This is problematic because a lack of clarity
is a significant barrier to academic discourse and practical implementation in
many organizations and countries. This article therefore carefully develops a
framework that results in six key perspectives on co-operation rooted in five
assumptions. In addition to fostering a deeper understanding of co-operation,
these six perspectives can be used to theorize alternative employment relations
paradigms when co-operation rather than conflict is viewed as the central
construct. Moreover, a dynamic analysis of these six perspectives adds new
insights to understanding the challenges of achieving and sustaining truly co-
operative regimes, while also highlighting the need to go beyond structures and
practices by incorporating the role of ideas in analyses of the success or failure
of co-operative eorts.
1. Introduction
Conflict and co-operation are at the heart of employment relations,
theoretically and in practice. But the understanding of these concepts is
uneven. Among scholars, conflict is more deeply theorized, with dierent
paradigms distinguished by their assumptions aboutemployment relationship
conflict, not co-operation (Budd and Bhave 2008; Fox 1973, 1974; Heery
2016). In contrast, practitioners and policy makers are more likely to put
co-operation at the centre of their analysis. In both realms, however, ‘co-
operation’ tends to be moulded to fit each individual’s own views without
Mark Bray and Johanna Macneil are at Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle,
Australia. John W. Budd is at Carlson School of Management,University of Minnesota.
C
2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
The Many Meanings of Co-Operation 115
defining it, including reducing it to mean the lack, or opposite, of conflict.
The result is inconsistency and confusion, creating a barrier to productive
academic discourse and hampering both the development of eective public
policy and the implementation of co-operation in practice. Consequently, our
starting premise is a need for more attention to the concept of co-operation
and its many meanings.
In the most generic use of the term ‘co-operation’, every employment
relationship involves co-operation to the extent that the parties are
participating in that relationship. But we find this unhelpful because it
does not recognize the sense of working together harmoniously that many
consider central to the meaning of co-operation. Moreover, the concept
of co-operation is (perhaps surprisingly) complex, leading to many, often
competing, perspectives on what co-operation means and how it can or
should be advanced within the employment relationship. In the context of
such diversity, we adopt a broad definition and then turn to a systematic
exploration of dierent meanings, manifestations, causes and consequences
within its boundaries.
We argue that the various meanings attributed to co-operation are rooted
in underlying values and assumptions and we explore the alternative views
using the well-known concept of ‘frames of reference’. As noted byFox (1974:
271) many years ago, observers and actors alike ‘perceive and define social
phenomena’ through frames of reference and, in turn, ‘their perceptions and
definitions determine their behaviour’ (also, Cornelissen and Werner 2014;
Walsh 1995). The standard approach to frames of reference in employment
relations, which identifies three (Fox 1973, 1974; Heery 2016) or four (Budd
and Bhave2008) key frames of reference, is conflict-centric (Avgarand Owens
2014).1In contrast, we argue that six frames of reference are needed to
adequately theorize alternative perspectives on co-operation. These frames
are important for understanding views on co-operation held by scholars,
practitioners, workers and policy makers. We make an additional conceptual
contribution by crafting the many meanings of co-operation into a ‘co-
operation curve’. Compared to the relatively static approach embedded in
frames of reference analyses, this curve allows for a dynamic analysis that
uniquely reveals the fragility of the two main forms of genuine co-operation.
Practically, the improved understanding that flows from our approach to
co-operation helps to overcome some of the diculties of achieving and
sustaining co-operation in the employment relationship. While there aremany
structural barriers to co-operation, emphasized in much of the literature (e.g.
Cooke 1990; Dobbins and Dundon 2017), our contribution revives Fox’s
(1974) insight that the attitudes and behaviours of the parties also matter. In
particular, the pursuit of co-operation is more likely to succeed if the parties’
perceptions of co-operation are aligned. By providing a clear, comprehensive
account of the many meanings of co-operation, our framework can help
policy makers and practitioners recognize the potential dissonance that can
come from unrecognizedvalues and assumptions. More positively,by enabling
a more coherent account of co-operation, the parties will be able to more
C
2019 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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