This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological writing in the classical pluralist phase.
Design/methodology/approach
An intellectual history, including detailed discussion of key Fox texts, supported by interviews with Fox and other Biographical sources.
Findings
Fox’s radicalisation was incomplete, as he carried over from his industrial relations (IR) pluralist mentors, Allan Flanders and Hugh Clegg, a suspicion of political Marxism, a sense of historical contingency and an awareness of the fragmented nature of industrial conflict.
Originality/value
Recent academic attention has centred on Fox’s later radical pluralism with its “structural” approach to the employment relationship. This paper revisits his early, neglected classical pluralist writing. It also illuminates his transition from institutional IR to a broader sociology of work, influenced by AH Halsey, John Goldthorpe and others and the complex nature of his radicalisation.
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Whether or not it is true that Keats let himself ‘be snuffed out by an article’, the literary notoriety of the attacks on him in Blackwood's Magazine and the Quarterly Review a…
Abstract
Whether or not it is true that Keats let himself ‘be snuffed out by an article’, the literary notoriety of the attacks on him in Blackwood's Magazine and the Quarterly Review a hundred and thirty years ago has ever since left editors and reviewers with a feeling of discomfort. The critics were anonymous. In some vigorous correspondence in the British Medical Journal two years ago on the question of signing book reviews a medical man once more asked the question ‘who killed John Keats?’ There was for medical men a two‐fold interest in this, because Keats studied medicine for six years, as an apprentice to a surgeon and as a student at Guy's and Thomas's. And the reviews in the two principal weekly medical journals in this country, the British Medical Journal and the Lancet, have always appeared as anonymous contributions. This, too, has long been the custom of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the principal weekly medical periodical in the United States. Last year, in the British Medical Journal, we broke the custom and the names of reviewers now appear at the foot of the notices they write.
Since the notion of “management style” can be defined in different ways, I need to make clear at the outset how I propose to use it. It is sometimes meant to refer to no more than…
Abstract
Since the notion of “management style” can be defined in different ways, I need to make clear at the outset how I propose to use it. It is sometimes meant to refer to no more than the manager's personal mode of behaviour—to the ways in which he conducts his immediate social relations with colleagues and subordinates. How does he give orders, seek advice, bestow praise or blame? There is an abundance of literature devoted to what might be called the tactics of face‐to‐face relationships. Much of it is hardly above the level of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, but some provide insight that is valuable for anyone involved in leadership and authority relations. I shall, however, refer to it only in passing, not because I want to disparage it, but because I want to use the notion of management style in the much broader sense of an over‐all strategy for organisational design. Under this usage, style refers to management in one of its most fundamental dimensions—namely its responsibility for the design and mode of functioning of the organisation through which management hopes to achieve its purposes.
It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields…
Abstract
It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.
Examines recent developments in organization theory and considerstheir relevance for personnel practitioners. Suggests that an importantcontribution of these developments has been…
Abstract
Examines recent developments in organization theory and considers their relevance for personnel practitioners. Suggests that an important contribution of these developments has been their challenge to the authority of established analyses in which there has been a tendency to overlook the constructed and fundamentally political nature of this knowledge. More specifically, provides a critical appraisal of the work of Stewart Clegg and, in particular, his Modern Organizations. Argues that the commitment in earlier work to extend and enrich the analysis of organizations has been displaced and diluted in his examination of “things postmodern”. In Modern Organizations, the critical thrust of earlier books is blunted by an objectivism which dilutes or suspends their concerns in favour of an attempt to provide seemingly more refined or accurate maps of organizational reality. It is difficult to see how this move is compatible with a commitment to develop theory which by challenging established ways of thinking about organizing, may contribute to the fostering of less divisive and destructive organizational practices.
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The Industrial Relations Research Unit of the Social Science Research Council was set up at the University of Warwick on 1st March 1970. Professor Hugh Clegg, Professor of…
Abstract
The Industrial Relations Research Unit of the Social Science Research Council was set up at the University of Warwick on 1st March 1970. Professor Hugh Clegg, Professor of Industrial Relations at Warwick was appointed to be Director, and Professor George Bain, Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), was appointed to be Deputy Director. The Unit's Advisory Committee, consisting of four representatives of the Social Science Research Council, three from the University of Warwick and three assessors, one each from the Trades Union Congress, the Confederation of British Industry and the Department of Employment, gave final approval to the proposed programme of research in June 1970, the majority of the staff appointments being made to take effect from 1st October.
It is now widely accepted, perhaps with some qualifications, that the dominant British school of industrial relations in recent years has been the liberal‐pluralist or…
Abstract
It is now widely accepted, perhaps with some qualifications, that the dominant British school of industrial relations in recent years has been the liberal‐pluralist or volutaristic‐pluralist school. Its centre has been Oxford and its main members have included Hugh Clegg, the late Allan Flanders, W E J McCarthy, G S Bain and A Fox. The influence of this group has been exhibited in its impact not only on industrial relations teaching and research, but also on policy, especially through the Donovan Report. Indeed, several writers have chosen to characterize it as a problem‐solving rather than a theoretical approach. However, it is important to acknowledge that a practical orientation may not in itself constitute an a‐theoretical position. Hyman and Fryer thus, for example, use the label ‘pragmatism’ to describe a component of the theoretical orientation of the ‘Oxford school’, thus recognizing that while its ‘theory may be only semi‐articulated and ….. partially developed’, the work of the school is not a‐theoretical.
The past two years have seen considerable changes in the organisation of the Industrial Relations Research Unit (IRRU) at the University of Warwick as well as its personnel. It is…
Abstract
The past two years have seen considerable changes in the organisation of the Industrial Relations Research Unit (IRRU) at the University of Warwick as well as its personnel. It is now a Designated Research Centre (DRC) for which the university is responsible, as opposed to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The unit now comprises members of the DRC and of the industrial relations teaching staff of the school. An overview of the main research projects being undertaken during the first phase of the eight‐year term of the DRC is given. These can be divided into three broad areas: those concerned with managing industrial relations; trade unions and collective bargaining; and the law and industrial relations. Some of the thinking behind these projects is given. It is argued that continuity is as important as change in the work of the unit, in particular in the value placed on theoretical developments and interdisciplinary research. There is no reason why new areas of investigation cannot be accommodated within additional definitions of industrial relations
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief and partial overview of some of the issues and authors that have dominated British industrial relations research since 1965. It is…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief and partial overview of some of the issues and authors that have dominated British industrial relations research since 1965. It is cast in terms of that year being the astronomical Big Bang from which all else was created. It traces a spectacular growth in academic interest and departments throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and then comments on the petering out of the tradition and its very existence (Darlington, 2009; Smith, 2011).
Design/methodology/approach
There are no methods other than a biased look through the literature.
Findings
These show a liberal oppression of the Marxist interpretation of class struggle through trade unions, collective bargaining, strikes, and public policy. At first through the Cold War and later, less well because many Marxists survived and thrived in industrial relations departments until after 2000, through closing courses and choking off demand. This essay exposes the hypocrisy surrounding notions of academic freedom, and throws light on the determination of those in the labour movement and their academic allies to push forward wage controls and stunted bargaining regimes, alongside restrictions on strikes, in the name of moderation and the middle ground.
Originality/value
An attempt to correct the history as written by the pro tem victors.