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Theoretical perspectives on work and the employment relationship. Edited by Bruce E. KAUFMAN. Champaign, IL, Industrial Relations Research Association, 2004. x + 374 pp. Figures, tables, references. ISBN 0-913447-88-9.
Ever since the end of the Second World War, leading thinkers in the field of industrial relations have sought to develop an integrative theory - or at least an overarching conceptual framework - that would tie the disparate branches of this field together and guide empirical work and policy debate. In his preface, Kaufman argues that "[t]he intrinsic interest of this project arises from the fact that theorizing gets to the core of what science is about, and few subjects are as important or interesting for theorizing in the social sciences as work and employment". As he also points out, however, another important aspect of the challenge is to stem "the long-term decline in the academic fortunes of industrial relations" that can be observed in many countries of the world, including the United States.
Several of the chapters in this book do indeed reflect serious concern over the future of industrial relations as a distinct discipline among the social sciences. And reading on, the uninitiated may begin to wonder about causes and effects on this particular point when it turns out that many of the contributors actually focus on the (individual) employment relationship. Reassuringly, however, one of the two chapters authored by Kaufman ("The employment relations system: A guide to theorizing") concludes quite categorically from historical evidence that "the central construct and object of study in industrial relations is the employment relationship. To more accurately convey this subject domain, a good case can be made that a better name for the field is employment relations".1
The sense of consensus on this point is strengthened, inter alia, in the contribution by David Marsden of the London School of Economics, on "Workplace HRM strategies and labor institutions". He argues that "the focus of both industrial relations and human resource management needs to be refocused around central features of...