Is There a Future for Industrial Relations

When I was asked to review these four weighty volumes about industrial relations, I agreed, thinking it would be a good opportunity to take stock of a field of academic study, policy-making and practice in which I have been engaged for nearly twenty years. And I have not been disappointed. All reflect, to varying degrees, the challenges faced by academics currently professing the subject. I would identify four in particular. Perhaps most importandy, the growing internationalisation of economic and political life is questioning the very basis of a sub-discipline whose conceptual and explanatory frameworks have been, until now, overwhelm ingly national. All four volumes under review, in their very different ways, make the case for the adoption of a comparative approach: the systematic analysis of two or more countries' industrial relations systems and/or the comparison of specific topic areas (flexibility, human resource manage ment) and institutions (collective bargaining, trade unions) with signi ficance across national boundaries. The second major challenge is the declining influence of organised labour in most advanced industrial societies. This threatens to undermine one of the main institutional focuses

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