Theory and Industrial Relations
| Author | Richard Hyman |
| Published date | 01 June 1994 |
| Date | 01 June 1994 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1994.tb01039.x |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
32:2
June
1994 0007-1080
$3.00
Theory and Industrial Relations
Richard
Hyman
Die Probleme und Vorgaben der Erwerbsarbeit durchstrahlen die gesamte
Gesellschaft. Die Industriegesellschaft ist auch aul3erhalb der Arbeit in der
Schematik ihres Lebens, in ihren Freuden und Leiden, in ihrem Begriff von
Leistung, in ihrer Rechtfertigung von Ungleichheit, in ihrem Sozialrecht, in
ihrer Machtbalance, in ihrer Politik und Kultur
durch und durch eine
Erwerbsarbeitgesellschaft.
(Beck
1986:
222)
La thCorie des relations industrielles qui a CtC la plus en faveur dans le monde
anglo-saxon est pratique dans son objet
(problem solving),
CpistCmologique-
ment positiviste et fonctionnaliste de mtthode
.
. .
Le modele fonctionnaliste
raffinC reste pour essentiel un outil heuristique pour guider la recherche dans une
certaine direction, celle des possibilitCs d’intkgration d’une structure par-
ticuliere de relations sociales considCrte comme donnee.
Or,
un outil
heuristique n’est pas un modtle explicatif.
Les
thCories partielles sont des
instruments au service des Clites gestionnaires et ne peuvent Cvidemment pas
mettre en question leurs valeurs
ou
objectifs. (Cox
1977: 116, 119)
To
contribute to this collection in honour
of
Hugh Clegg is both a pleasure
and a challenge.
I
have known Hugh for almost thirty years: first as
supervisor
of
my doctoral thesis in Oxford, then as professor and colleague
at Warwick. These geographical associations do not,
of
course, make me a
member
of
either the Oxford or the Warwick ‘schools’
of
industrial
relations, where in each case Hugh was the most prolific author. Our
analytical approaches have conflicted radically; but we could agree to
disagree. In different ways, we have both been led to examine, not
altogether conclusively, the implications
of
our theoretical-ideological
disagreements for our actual analysis
of
industrial relations (Clegg 1979:
ch. 11; Hyman 1980).
The contemporary and historical experience
of
industrial relations in
Britain is bewildering in its diversity and complexity. Hugh’s knowledge is
encyclopaedic, and this has made him wary
of
generalization: the priority in
the majority
of
his writings has been to get the facts right. Nevertheless, he
has also given explicit attention to issues
of
theory, particularly as concerns
the analysis
of
trade unionism. In his
New
Approach
to
Industrial
Demo-
cracy
(1960) he developed the thesis that unions are essentially a counter-
balance to management, and therefore must sustain their independence: an
opposition which can never become the government. The management
-
union interaction was central also to his interpretation
of
the differing
Richard Hyman is Convenor
of
Graduate Studies, Industrial Relations Research Unit, Uni-
versity
of
Warwick.
166
patterns
of
internal organization in British unions (Clegg 1970; Boraston
ef
al.
1975). This argument was extended and elaborated in his six-country
comparative study,
Trade Unions under Collective Bargaining
(1976): here,
he proposed that national forms of union structure and government, systems
of workplace organization, levels of union density and patterns
of
industrial
conflict could all be explained primarily by the character
of
collective
bargaining institutions; and that these in turn largely reflected the actions
or
omissions
of
employers.
The latter work is Hugh’s most systematic engagement with issues
of
theorization
-
in many respects, taking up Allan Flanders’s unfinished
effort to develop a theory
of
trade unionism.
I
will return to this. However,
my primary concern in this paper is to probe more general questions relating
to the role of theory in industrial relations.
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
1.
The problem
of
theory in industrial relations
It
is
over a third
of
a century since Dunlop’s call to transcend the pragmatism
and empiricism that had hitherto characterized the study
of
industrial
relations: ‘Facts have outrun ideas. Integrating theory has lagged far behind
expanding experience’ (Dunlop 1958: vi).
A
decade later, Somers (1969)
assembled a symposium of a dozen
of
the leading
US
academics in the field
to explore the extent
of
theoretical progress. Since then, the literature on
‘industrial relations theory’ has proliferated; in North America it has even
become possible to speak
of
a ‘pedagogy’ of industrial relations theory
(Adams and Meltz 1993). Yet today, as recent debates in this journal
indicate (Dunn 1990; Keenoy 1991), theoretical disorientation seems even
more apparent than when Dunlop wrote.
At least three explanations may be suggested. The first is the instrumental
logic underlying much
of
the search for theory. ‘Industrial relations has not
yet achieved a status comparable to the traditional academic disciplines
or
to
the established professional fields’, complained Somers in the Foreword to
his volume. ‘The development
of
the theoretical underpinnings
of
the field
would be a significant step in the elevation
of
its academic status’ (1969: vii-
viii). Academic politics (and no doubt considerations
of
career advance-
ment) are not necessarily the most effective bases for intellectual enlighten-
ment.
Second, there is something paradoxical about the effort to construct
theoretical foundations for an edifice that already stands, however precari-
ously. If industrial relations emerged as a field
of
study in response to the
practical concerns of managers, government policy-makers and perhaps also
union leaders, without significant concern for the theoretical coherence
of
its
agenda, can ‘integrating theory’ really be created
post festum?
Dunlop’s
plea seems to reflect a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon tradition
of
empiricist
theorizing: the belief that theory is a kind
of
intellectual sticking plaster
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