Martin B. Carstensen, Christian Lyhne Ibsen, Vivien A. Schmidt
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引用次数: 6
Abstract
Motivated by the efforts to understand shifting dynamics of change and stability in employment relations—not least ones brought on by a decade of crisis in what was a neoliberal consensus—scholars increasingly focus on the role of ideas, discourses, and identities. This paper argues for the potential of continuing down this path of employing ideational explanations in employment relations. First, it highlights four key weaknesses of employing more pure materialist–institutionalist approaches that have traditionally dominated employment relations scholarship. Second, it argues that to recognize and build on existing efforts to bring in ideas to employment relations, it is useful to place these on the macro-, meso-, and micro levels. Third, to further advance an ideational perspective on employment relations, it proposes to place more centrally the concept of ideational power. Fourth, it presents key insights from the papers that make up the Special Issue and fleshes out how the individual papers of the Special Issue contribute to this agenda.
期刊介绍:
Corporate restructuring and downsizing, the changing employment relationship in union and nonunion settings, high performance work systems, the demographics of the workplace, and the impact of globalization on national labor markets - these are just some of the major issues covered in Industrial Relations. The journal offers an invaluable international perspective on economic, sociological, psychological, political, historical, and legal developments in labor and employment. It is the only journal in its field with this multidisciplinary focus on the implications of change for business, government and workers.