Applying Budd’s model to partnership

Abstract

Over the last decade, the notions of workplace partnership and labour—management cooperation have resulted in distinctive and vociferous debates regarding forms of employee voice in the UK. It is proposed that there is a need to reconsider how we actually evaluate both the process and outcomes of partnership. This article reports on detailed case studies conducted in three diverse banking organizations in order to understand more about the process and outcomes of partnership. The study then applies the ‘efficiency, equity, voice’ framework developed by Budd, which has not been widely employed in industrial relations research. Accordingly, the article examines if and how partnership contributes to the balancing of efficiency, equity and voice. Judged in this light, the case studies demonstrate various degrees of success in terms of the extent to which partnership has facilitated voice and promoted more considered decision-making, for both management and employees. The article also demonstrates the usefulness of the Budd framework as a device in analysing employment relations processes and outcomes.

The Potential of Labour−Management Partnership: A Longitudinal Case Analysis

“…Although partnership was an imprecise term (Bacon and Storey, ; Guest and Peccei, ), for most industrial relations (IR) specialists, partnership was a pluralist project concerned with promoting cooperative relations between unions and employers (Oxenbridge and Brown, ). Ackers and Payne () and Kelly () set out the normative case for and against cooperative union−management partnerships, and numerous empirical studies have since examined the benefits and risks for employers, unions and their members in the UK (Brewster et al ., ; Butler, Glover and Tregaskis, ; Danford et al ., , , ; Johnstone, Wilkinson and Ackers, , ; Kelly, ), Ireland (Dobbins and Dundon, ; Geary and Trif, ) and the USA (Kochan, ). The findings are far from clear cut; it is possible to find evidence to support the mutual gains arguments of the advocates, the risks and challenges identified by the critics, and all the various points in between (Johnstone, ; Johnstone, Ackers and Wilkinson, , Johnstone and Wilkinson, ).…”

Critical incidents of partnership: five years' experience at NatBank

“…There is a need to rethink exactly what partnership means, and what it is expected to achieve, and to judge accordingly. Partnership will not deliver an equal balance of mutual gains to actors—whatever this would look like—but it is quite possible that outcomes might be more balanced than they otherwise would have been, and this is a central component of the pluralist ethic (see Johnstone et al ., 2010b for a discussion). Partnership studies must also be informed by a realistic public policy framework, located within the broader British IR context of union decline and less jointly regulated employment relations.…”

“…This article draws on Stewart Johnstone's doctoral research, which will be published in Johnstone, S. (2010), Labour and Management Cooperation: Workplace Partnership in UK Financial Services , Basingstoke: Gower. Some of the data is also included as part of a comparative article (see Johnstone et al ., 2010b).…”

Does workplace partnership deliver mutual gains at work?

“…Appelbaum et al, 2000; Kochan and Osterman, 1994). A key controversy, however, is the extent to which workplace partnership can deliver mutual gains (Kochan and Osterman, 1994), and various studies have empirically assessed the risks and benefits for unions, employees and employers (Butler et al, 2011; Dobbins and Gunnigle, 2009; Geary and Trif, 2011; Guest and Peccei, 2001; Johnstone, 2010; Johnstone et al, 2010a, 2010b, 2011; Whyman and Petrescu, 2014).…”