New Directions in Employment Relations Theory: Understanding Fragmentation, Identity, and Legitimacy

Abstract

This article introduces the special issue on New Theories in Employment Relations. The authors summarize the history of employment relations theory and reflect on the implications of recent disruptive changes in the economy and society for new theory development. Three sets of changes are identified: the growing complexity of actors in the employment relationship, an increased emphasis on identity as a basis for organizing and extending labor protections, and the growing importance of norms and legitimacy as both a constraint on employer action and a mobilizing tool. The articles in this special issue advance new frameworks to analyze these changes and their implications for the future of employment relations.

The Contribution of Empowerment of the Palm Oil Industry on Employment and Palm Oil Exports in Bangka Belitung Island Province

“…In wellknown, the absorption of exertions suggests how much a organisation absorbs labor to provide a product. The potential to soak up labor differs from one sector to every other [17].…”

Towards a relational environmental labour studies

“…It would be surprising if relational and interactional views were not present in industrial relations which, like IR, seeks to examine relations, broadly construed, between different categories of actors (for overviews see Barry and Wilkinson, 2021;Doellgast et al, 2021;Kaufman, 2004;Lee and Tapia, 2021;Muller-Jentsch, 2004) 3 . Like in IR, there is a great deal that can be learned by studying the interactions of corporations and unions.…”

“…From a relational perspective, their differential attributes and strategies are embedded within the industrial relations and the broader political economy in which unions and corporations are constituted. Whether from the vantage point of Gramscian hegemony – one that fuses material capabilities, institutions and ideas (Cox, 1981; Gramsci, 1971; see Keil and Kreinin (2022) and Wright, Irwin, Nyberg and Bowden (2022) in this issue) – or John Gaventa’s (1980) quiescence, leaving constitutive relations out of our explanations has both empirical and political implications.…”

Inter-Union Solidarity and Strategic Group Identity: Insights from Works Councils in the French Car Industry

“…This latter external feature suggests identity incorporates ideology into its orbit insofar as the latter is an instrument of legitimisation (Fox, 1971: 124). Identity features, for example, in recent studies of union organising (Doellgast et al, 2021). Yet, there is a lack of understanding of how union identities assist inter-union cooperation and solidarity, despite the important role identity plays more broadly in shaping union behaviour (Hodder and Edwards, 2015).…”