Work and Pay in Twentieth Century Britain – Edited by Nicholas Crafts, Ian Gazeley and Andrew Newell
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00652.x |
| Date | 01 December 2007 |
| Published date | 01 December 2007 |
| Author | George R. Boyer |
employment activities inside the firm and other factors affecting HR choices receive
less attention.
As the authors work in diverse academic fields, it is difficult to identify a unique
theoretical core to HRM. Tensions exist between chapters emphasizing an internal
view of the firm — drawing upon strategic HRM concepts such as competitive
advantage, employment subsystems and the resource-based view of the firm and other
chapters presenting an external view of the firm and broader social and political
concerns. Kochan’s final chapter is a good example of the external view, highlighting
the social costs of HR managers’ complicity in breaking the social contract between
firms and employees. As Kaufman’s chapter explains, the study of employment issues
reflects the economic and political climate. It is therefore unsurprising that the
resource-based view of the firm in HRM emphasized by many chapters in this book
has emerged at a time of union decline and fewer restraints on labour management.
The book reflects this productive tension in the labour management field between firm
performance and employee welfare. The current emphasis on firm performance rather
than socially responsible labour management reflects both current management prac-
tice and scholarship. Future handbooks will undoubtedly assess to what extent the
current emphasis on strategic HRM undermines or promotes socially desirable
employment outcomes.
Nicolas Bacon
University of Nottingham
Work and Pay in Twentieth Century Britain edited by Nicholas Crafts, Ian Gazeley
and Andrew Newell. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007, vi +369 pp., ISBN
0 19 921266 8, £18.99
The twentieth century has witnessed remarkable changes in the labour markets of all
developed countries, and Britain is no exception. These changes include: rapid long-
term increases in labour productivity and in the living standards of manual workers;
major structural changes in output and employment, leading to a sharp decline in
employment in manufacturing and agriculture, and increased employment in services;
a gradual but large decline in lifetime hours worked by males, as a result of delayed
entry into the labour market, a decline in the length of the working week, and a
lowering of the age of retirement; an increase in the labour force participation of
women, and in particular married women, and a decline in fertility; the rise of the
welfare state and the rise, and subsequent decline, of trade unionism; and a rise in
immigration rates.
This volume contains 13 essays examining these, and other, changes in the British
labour market during the twentieth century. The authors are all well known and
highly respected scholars in economics and economic history — besides the editors,
they include Florence Kondylis, Jonathan Wadsworth, Paul Johnson, Asghar Zaidi,
Sara Horrell, Sara Connolly, Mary Gregory, Pat Thane, Chris Wrigley, Michael
Sanderson, Stephen Broadberry, Mary O’Mahony and Dudley Baines. The volume
appears to be targeted to university students taking courses in recent economic
history, although labour economists and historians of modern Britain will find it to be
a useful resource.
There is not room to summarize each of the chapters, but I will highlight some of the
most interesting findings of the book. In chapter 1, Nicholas Crafts presents evidence
Book Reviews 859
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007.
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