The Power to Manage?: Employers and Industrial Relations in Comparative Historical Perspective

The crucial role of employers and managers in the development of industrial relations has been the focus of much recent research. Yet there remains little consensus on key issues such as the determinants of managerial strategies or employers' contributions to differing national patterns of industrial relations. The Power to Manageargues that many of these difficulties stem from the limitations of the theoretical frameworks within which the research has been carried out. Both functionalist and evolutionary perspectives subordinate managerial choices to the pressures of the market or the broader patterns of business development. In consequence, these approaches cannot explain the persistent diversity of employers' labor policies or the prevalence of contradictory and incoherent strategies. Using the "peculiarities" of British industrial relations as a point of departure, the contributors to this volume present detailed empirical studies of employer labor policies in avariety of countries. They establish a comparative-historical framework within which the distinctiveness of British developments can be evaluated and explained, and which points the way towards a new interpretation of the employer's role in industrial relations.