British Journal of Industrial Relations最新文献

This study investigates the effects of the mandatory extension of collective agreements on union membership. This relationship is investigated using a difference-in-differences framework on the staggered industry- and county-wide introduction of mandatory extension in Norway from 2005 to 2011. The introduction of mandatory extension was championed by labour and social partners and motivated by the EU enlargement of 2004 in response to increasing labour immigration. However, mandatory extension could lead to lower union membership through free-rider behaviour. It is therefore a question of whether the cure is worse than the problem it is supposed to solve. The results show that mandatory extension had an overall negative effect on union density in the affected industries of about −2.7 percentage points. The effect varies between the different industries but is never positive. These findings give credence to the free-rider hypothesis, where mandatory extension is expected to lead to lower union density because there is less incentive to become a union member when workers can obtain the benefits of the collective agreement without paying the union dues. In line with the theoretical expectations, the effect is stronger where the gap between collective wage and non-union wage is largest. However, negative effects are also present where this wage gap is small, showing that the results are valid in different contexts.

In this article, we honour David Marsden's most important contribution: his Theory of Employment Systems (ToES). Grounded in standard economic analysis, ToES sets out to explain how a relatively small number of employment systems solve fundamental problems associated with open-ended employment relationships (flexibility and opportunism). In the period since its publication, the employment relationship remains the dominant form of engaging workers; however, employment arrangements in the UK and elsewhere have been transformed, and employment systems in many settings more closely resemble configurations of rules that ToES predicted would prove unstable. While ToES does not explicitly integrate a number of important dimensions that define all aspects of employment systems, we show why Marsden's core theoretical insights retain analytical purchase as an explanatory framework. That said, taking a more sociologically and historically informed approach to understanding contemporary employment systems is required to comprehend the diversity of employment systems and how they evolve in the twenty-first century.

I argue that David Marsden, lauded in Employment Relations (ER) and Human Resource Management, deserves recognition as an organization theorist. Viewing his works as a unified theory, I demonstrate how his focus on the interaction between individual actions, institutions and organizational structures aligns with the fields core concerns. Further, I apply an organizational dialectics approach to his analysis of organizational tensions like managerial authority and diffusion of employment systems. This reinterpretation offers new insights into organizational structure and design and the importance of ER-specific factors and processes in shaping them. It highlights the enduring value of Marsden's framework for understanding organizations.

This research investigates how and why the digitalization of work can disrupt age-based earnings stratification in an occupation. Analysing a service archive dataset from a major online legal service platform in China, the study finds that, contrary to the traditional patterns of income inequality, younger lawyers earn more than older lawyers in the digital legal field. Further analyses of the platform's service records and interviews with lawyers working on this platform suggest that the platform's work content and work distribution mechanism make mature lawyers’ human, social and symbolic capital less useful. Meanwhile, the preferences of platform clients place added value on younger lawyers’ digital habitus and turn it into a new form of cultural capital, manifested in their proficiency and effectiveness in digital communication. By examining habitus and capital in the emerging digital legal field, this research deepens the understanding of the impact of digital technologies on knowledge-intensive occupations.

This article unveils the establishment or rejection of strike funds as a tangible organisational tool towards union renewal. Despite strike funds being a necessary and recurring instrument in the organisation of strikes, they have seldom been theorised as a distinct (infrastructural) power resource fundamental to understanding unions’ readiness and preparation for industrial conflict. Institutionalised strike funds, supported by union dues, provide economic support to strikers, reinforce their collective identity, legitimise a more confrontational position towards collective bargaining and may garner support from the broader community. Additionally, strike funds may serve as tools to attract members and shape narratives that can influence corporate positions and public opinion during labour disputes. Through a comparative analysis of 10 confederal unions in Spain, we illustrate the different strategic views that unions may hold with respect to them. Crucially, we find that the presence or absence of strike funds reflects the specific political position a union adopts concerning industrial conflict and how they may possibly articulate them with other power resources. Hence, the institutionalisation of strike funds involves a complex union renewal process, which is also influenced by a comparative learning process between unions. Finally, we also explain the flourishing of different strike funds during the last decades that derive from a spillover effect between counterpower and radical unions.