The Management of Pay as the Influence of Collective Bargaining Diminishes.

The management of pay in Britain has changed substantially in recent years. The paper starts with a theoretical discussion of the extent to which individual employers can exercise discretion in the management of their employees' pay. It then examines the ways in which pay is used to secure productive effort. An analysis of the influence of trade unions leads on to an examination of the diminishing influence of collective bargaining in British pay determination. The implications of this are discussed for employer pay strategies, within and between firms, and internationally. It concludes with the consequences of diminishing trade union influence for the distribution of pay.wage determination; collective bargaining; remuneration management; bargaining structure; income distribution; trade union effects; employer pay strategy

European social dialogue as multi-level governance: towards more autonomy and new dependencies

Almost twenty years ago the Maastricht Treaty introduced procedures for European Social Dialogue, as part of a larger package of measures to strengthen the social dimension of European integration. Through the Treaty provisions (articles 154-155 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), the European social partners received the competence to become, in principle, co-regulators of the European labour market. The conventional reading of the evolution of European social dialogue since its inception is that it has evolved from a relationship of dependency of the European social partners on the European institutions for the implementation of their framework agreements, towards a more autonomous position in which the social partners themselves take charge of implementation. Since the early 2000s, the argument continues, the social partners have taken a more proactive and independent stance and opted to focus on autonomous framework agreements, and other ‘new generation texts’, including joint reports, recommendations, compendia of good practices, etc., which are not directed at the European institutions in order to secure implementation. In this paper we want to challenge and move beyond this rather linear and one-dimensional conceptualisation of the evolution of European social dialogue. Empirically, we will show that there has not been a straightforward move away from the ‘implementation through Directive’ mode in favour of autonomous agreements. Whereas this may seem the case if we take a view of the cross-sector dialogue only, the picture changes when we have a closer look and include developments in the European sector social dialogue in the analysis. Analytically, we will argue that framing the issue in terms of dependency or autonomy does not do justice to the complexity of relationships that are involved in the European social dialogue and the European sector social dialogue, and in the implementation of framework agreements and other new generation texts. Also it accords little attention to the role of power in the relationships involved. We draw on a multi-governance perspective to analyse the dynamics of European social dialogue, which allows us to capture the relevant multiple horizontal and vertical relationships, or interdependencies, between the European and national, and public and private, actors involved. Interdependency implies the presence of both autonomy and dependence in a relationship, and our central proposition is that these interdependencies simultaneously enhance and limit the capacity of the European social partners to make and implement agreements

Advancing understanding on industrial relations in multinational companies: key research challenges and the INTREPID contribution

peer-reviewedThis paper has three principal aims. It firstly provides some theoretical background on the key current research issues and challenges in regard to industrial relations in multinational companies. It then presents a concise review of scholarship to date on industrial relations in multinational companies using INTREPID (Investigation of Transnationals Employment Practices: an International Database) data. Finally, the paper identifies some of the main industrial relations issues that remain to be addressed, in effect charting a form of research agenda for future work using the INTREPID data, with particular focus on the potential contribution from ‘late joiners’ to the INTREPID project.ACCEPTEDpeer-reviewe

The evolution of the student as a customer in Australian higher education: a policy perspective

In 2014, the Australian Federal Government attempted to de-regulate higher education fees so as to allow universities to set their own tuition fees. The associated public debate offer critical insights into how the identity of a student as a ‘customer’ of higher education is understood and deployed when developing higher education policy. This paper uses the 2014 Australian higher education reforms as a lens through which to further scholarly research into the student-as-customer metaphor and to see how it is influenced by the perceptions and understandings of policy actors external to the higher education sector. These include politicians, special interest groups, the students and their parents and prospective employers. This study reveals that the public/private nexus—both of funding and benefit— problematizes traditional conceptualisations of students and others as higher education customers. In turn, this restricts the ability or desire of policy actors to describe how the student functions as a customer as a consequence of market reform. This inability compromises the development of effective and sustainable higher education polic

Turning collegial governance on its head : symbolic violence, hegemony and the academic board

This article draws on Bourdieu’s theorisation of domination and Gramsci’s notions of hegemony within the context of a larger empirical study of Australian university academic governance, and of academic boards (also known as academic senates or faculty senates) in particular. Reporting data that suggest a continued but radically altered form of collegial governance in which hegemony is exercised by management rather than by the professor, it theorises the domination of academic boards within western democratic universities. However, traditional collegial governance is also dependent upon a community of scholars, a role historically played by the academic board. In view of the suggested transition in collegial governance and the resultant convergence of academic work and management, the article concludes with questions about whether academic boards can continue to serve as communities of scholars in future

Public Goods and Public Policy: what is Public Good, and who and what Decides?

Higher education is usually seen as serving the public good, especially when funded directly by the state, and because of the ‘social benefit efficiency gains and potential equity effects on opportunity and reduced inequality’ (McMahon, 2009, p. 255). Calhoun (2006, p. 19) argues that public support for higher education is only given and maintained according to its capacity, capability, and willingness, to ‘educate citizens in general, to share knowledge, to distribute it as widely as possible in accord with publically articulated purposes’

The World-Class Multiversity: Global commonalities and national characteristics

World-Class Universities (WCUs) are nationally embedded comprehensive higher education institutions (HEIs) that are closely engaged in the global knowledge system. The article reviews the conditions of possibility and evolution of WCUs. Three interpretations are used to explain worldwide higher education: neoliberal theory, institutional theory, and critical political economy, which give greater recognition than the other theories to the role of the state and variations between states. World higher education is evolving under conditions of globalization, organizational modernization (the New Public Management), and in some countries, marketization. These larger conditions have become manifest in higher education in three widespread tendencies: massification, the WCU movement, and organizational expansion. The last includes the strengthening of the role of the large multi-disciplinary multi-purpose HEIs ("multiversities"), in the form of both research-intensive WCUs with significant global presence, and other HEIs. The role of binary sector and specialist HEIs has declined. Elite WCUs gain status and strategic advantage in both quantity and quality: through growth and the expansion of scope, and through selectivity and research concentration. The balance between quantity and quality is now resolved at larger average size and broader scope than before. The final section of the article reviews WCUs in China and considers whether they might constitute a distinctive university model