15.676 | Spring 2008 | Graduate

Work, Employment, and Industrial Relations Theory

Readings

Required Books

Whitfield, Keith, and George Strauss, eds. Researching the World of Work. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780801485497.

Kaufman, Bruce. The Origins & Evolution of Industrial Relations in the United States. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780875461922.

Buy at MIT Press Osterman, Paul, Thomas Kochan, Richard Locke, and Michael Piore. Working in America: A Blueprint for the New Labor Market. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262650625.

Budd, John. Employment with a Human Face. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780801472602.

Note: We will sample from this reading list for the purposes of class discussions. IWER (Institute for Work and Employment Research) students should become well versed in all of the material on this list over the course of their first two years in the PhD Program.

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1-2 Historical evolution, contemporary issues and debates, and alternative approaches to the study of work and employment relations

Kochan, Thomas. “What is Distinctive about Industrial Relations Research?” In Researching the World of Work. Edited by Keith Whitfield and George Strauss. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998, pp. 31-50. ISBN: 9780801485497.

Kaufman, Introduction and chapter 1.

Kochan, Thomas. “Historical Development of Industrial Relations.” In Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations. 1st ed. Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1980, pp. 1-23. ISBN: 9780256023534.

Hyman, Richard. “Comment on Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations.” Industrial Relations 21 (Winter 1982): 100-113.

Budd, pp. 1-81.

Locke, Richard, and Kathleen Thelen. “Apples and Oranges Revisited: Contextualized Comparisons and the Study of Comparative Labor Politics.” Politics & Society 23 (Sep 1995): 337-367.

Osterman, et al., chapter 1.

Piore, Michael. “Revitalizing Industrial Relations.” In New Directions in the Study of Work and Employment. Edited by Charles Whalen. Edward Elgar Publishing, Northampton, MA: 2008 (forthcoming). ISBN: 9781847204523.

Kochan, Thomas. “Conclusion: The Future of Industrial Relations aka Work and Employment Relations.” In New Directions in the Study of Work and Employment. Edited by Charles Whalen. Edward Elgar Publishing, Northampton, MA: 2008 (forthcoming). ISBN: 9781847204523.

3 The bases of pluralist/institutional industrial relations theory

Commons, John. “Introduction.” In History of Labour in the United States. Vol. 1. Frederick, MD: Beard Books, 1918. ISBN: 9781893122741.

———. “American Shoemakers: 1648-1895.” Reprinted in Readings in Labor Economics and Labor Relations. 4th ed. Edited by Richard Rowan. Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1976. ISBN: 9780256018295.

Parsons, Kenneth. “The Basis of Commons’ Progressive Approach to Public Policy.” In Labor Management and Social Policy: Essays in the John R. Commons Tradition. Edited by Gerald Somers. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963, pp. 3-24.

Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Industrial Democracy. London, UK: Longmans, 1902.

Perlman, Selig. A Theory of the Labor Movement. New York: MacMillan, 1928.

Barbash, Jack. The Elements of Industrial Relations. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985, selections. ISBN: 9780299096144.

Dunlop, John. Industrial Relations Systems. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780875843346.

Kerr, Clark, John Dunlop, Frederick Harbison, and Charles Myers. Industrialism and Industrial Man. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.

Piore, Michael, and Charles Sabel. The Second Industrial Divide. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1986. ISBN: 9780465075614.

Kochan, Thomas, Harry Katz, and Robert McKersie. The Transformation of American Industrial Relations. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780875463209.

Osterman, et al., chapters 6-7.

4 Marxist perspectives of industrial relations

Macro Issues: Labor, the Economy, and Society

Marx, Karl. “Wage Labour and Capital,” “Class Struggle and Mode of Production,” “Manifesto of The Communist Party,” and “Critique of the Gotha Programme.”

Engels, Frederick. “The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State.” In The Marx-Engels Reader. Edited by Robert Tucker. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 9780393090406.

Braverman, Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, selections, 1998. ISBN: 9780853459408.

Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York, NY: International Publishers, 1971. ISBN: 9780717803972.

Boyer, Robert, ed. The Search for Labor Market Flexibility. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1988, selections. ISBN: 9780198285601.

Micro Perspectives: The Labor Process

Hyman, Richard. Industrial Relations. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 1975, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780333186671.

Stone, Katherine. “The Origins of Job Structures in the Steel Industry.” Review of Radical Political Economics 6, no. 2 (1974): 113-173.

Fox, Alan. Beyond Contract: Work, Authority and Trust Relations. London, UK: Faber and Faber, 1974, chapter 2. ISBN: 9780571104697.

5 Economics perspectives: institutional and internal labor market theory

Kaufman, pp. 84-91.

Reynolds, Lloyd. “Labor Economics, Institutions, and the Market.” In Labor Economics and Labor Relations. 11th ed. Edited by Lloyd Reynolds, Stanley Masters, and Colletta Moser. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997. ISBN: 9780132633109.

Kerr, Clark. “The Social Economics Revisionists: The ‘Real World’ Study of Labor Markets and Institutions.” In Labor Economics and Industrial Relations: Markets and Institutions. Edited by Clark Kerr and Paul Staudohar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780674011403.

Doeringer, Peter, and Michael Piore. Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis. Lexington, MA: Heath Lexington Books, 1971, selections.

Osterman, Paul. “Choice Among Alternative Internal Labor Markets.” Industrial Relations 26 (1987): 46-67.

———. Securing Prosperity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000, chapters 1-2. ISBN: 9780691086880.

———. Gathering Power. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2003, chapters 1 and 5. ISBN: 9780807043387.

Freeman, Richard, and Joel Rogers. What Workers Want. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780801485633.

Freeman, Richard, and James Medoff. What Do Unions Do? New York: Basic Books, 1986, selections. ISBN: 9780465091348.

Rebitzer, James. “Radical Political Economy and the Economics of Labor Markets.” Journal of Economic Literature 31 (September 1993): 1394-1434.

6 Sociological foundations of human resource management

Kaufman, chapter 2 and pp. 76-84, 95-99, 118-121.

Jacoby, Sanford. Employing Bureaucracy. Philadelphia, PA: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004, selections. ISBN: 9780805844092.

Roethlisberger, F. J. “The Hawthorne Experiments.” In Management and Morale. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941. ISBN: 9780674546509.

Coch, L., and J. R. P. French. “Overcoming Resistance to Change.” Human Relations 1 (1948): 512-33.

McGregor, Douglas. The Human Side of the Enterprise. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1960, selections. ISBN: 9780070450929.

Rousseau, Denise, and Judi Parks. “The Contracts of Individuals and Organizations.” In Research in Organizational Behavior. Vol. 15. Edited by L. L. Cummings and Barry Staw. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1993. ISBN: 9781559385220.

Stone, Katherine. “The New Psychological Contract: Implications of the Changing Workplace of Labor and Employment Law.” UCLA Law Review 48 (2001): 519-661.

Jacoby, Sanford. “Are Career Jobs Headed for Extinction?” California Management Review 42 (1999): 123-145.

Cappelli, Peter. “Career Jobs Are Dead.” California Management Review 42 (1999): 146-167.

Jacoby, Sanford. “Reply: Premature Reports of a Demise.” California Management Review 42 (1999): 168-179.

7 Psychological foundations of human resource management faculty?

Gilliland, Stephen, and Layne Paddock. “Organizational Justice Across Human Resource Management Decisions.” In International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Vol. 20. Edited by Gerard Hodgkinson and J. Kevin Ford. Chichester, UK: Wiley & Sons, 2005, pp. 149-175. ISBN: 9780470867105.

Latham, G. P., and M-H. Budworth. “The Study of Work Motivation in the 20th Century.” In Historical Perspectives in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Edited by Laura Koppes. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, 2006. ISBN: 9780805844405.

Schmidt, F., and J. Hunter. “The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings.” Psychological Bulletin 124 (1998): 262-274.

Van Knippenberg, D., C. K. W. De Dreu, and A. C. Homan. “Work Group Diversity and Group Performance: An Integrative Model and Research Agenda.” Journal of Applied Psychology 89 (2004): 1008-1022.

8 Strategic human resource management and high performance work systems

Chadwick, Clint, and Peter Cappelli. “Alternatives to Generic Strategy Typologies in Strategic Human Resource Management.” In Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management: Strategic Human Resources Management in the Twenty-First Century, Supplement 4. Edited by Patrick Wright, Lee Dyer, John Boudreau, and George Milkovich. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780762305254.

MacDuffie, John Paul. “Human Resource Bundles and Manufacturing Performance: Organizational Logic and Production Systems in the World Auto Industry.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 48 (1995): 197-221.

Ichniowski, Casey, Kathryn Saw, and Giovanna Prennushi. “The Effects of Human Resource Management Practices on Productivity: A Study of Steel Finishing Lines.” American Economic Review 87 (1997): 291-313.

9 Political science perspectives: global supply chains

Stiglitz, Joseph. “Democratic Development as the Fruits of Labor.” Perspectives on Work 4 (2000): 31-37.

Weil, David. “Public Enforcement/Private Monitoring: Evaluating a New Approach to Regulating the Minimum Wage.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 58 (2005): 238-257.

Weil, David, and Carlos Mallo. “Regulating Labour Standards via Supply Chains: Combining Public/Private Interventions to Improve Workplace Compliance.” British Journal of Industrial Relations 45 (2007): 785-814.

Locke, Richard, Thomas Kochan, Monica Romis, and Fei Qin. “Beyond Corporate Codes of Conduct: Work Organization and Labour Standards in Nike’s Suppliers.” International Labour Review 146 (2007): 21-37.

10 Negotiations theory and research

Walton, Richard, and Robert McKersie. A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991, selections. ISBN: 9780875461793.

Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Joel, Robert McKersie, and Richard Walton. Strategic Negotiations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000, chapters 1-3. ISBN: 9780801486975.

Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Joel, and Thomas Kochan. “Taking Stock: Collective Bargaining at the Turn of the Century.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 58 (October 2004): 3-26.

MIT Project on Lateral Alignment in Complex Systems. “Enabling the Internal Organization to Support Lateral Alignment Across Stakeholders: A Case Study of the Office of Energy and the Environment, Federal Aviation Administration.”

11 Global occupational studies: call center research

van Jaarsveld, Danielle, Hyunji Kwon, and Ann C. Frost. “The Effects of ‘Small Differences’ on Numerical Flexibility: Evidence from U.S. and Canadian Call Centers.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review (2007), under review.

Doellgast, Virginia. “Collective Bargaining and High Involvement Management in Comparative Perspective: Evidence from U.S. and German Call Centers.” Industrial Relations 47, no. 2 (2008): 284-319.

Holman, David, Rosemary Batt, and Ursula Holtgrewe. The Global Call Center Report: International Perspectives on Management and Employment, 2007. This is a practitioner report that survey respondents received. Review the executive summary and technical note; skim the content.

Batt, Rosemary, and Hiro Nohara. “How Institutions and Business Strategies Affect Wages: A Cross National Study of Call Centers.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review (2007), under review.

Holman, David, Stephen Frenkel, Ole Sørensen, and Stephen Wood. “Work Design Variation and Outcomes in Call Centers: Strategic Choice and Institutional Explanations.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, under review.

12 Industry studies  
13 Wrap-up  

Appendix

Course Info

As Taught In
Spring 2008
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Lecture Notes
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