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- Title
Understanding the employment relationship: markets, hierarchies and power.
- Authors
Nolan, Peter
- Abstract
ABSTRACT The employment relationship is fiercely contested both in theory and practice. This article examines recent theoretical initiatives in economics that have sought to illuminate the nature, specificity, and complexities of the employment relationship. It examines claims by proponents of the new institutional economics (NIE) that they can account for the historical emergence of authority relations and the dominance of hierarchical work organisations without reference to the forces of class power, coercion and labour subordination. The NIE is contrasted with the 'old' institutional economics (OIE) and the distinctive insights of an industrial relations perspective. The paper considers in conclusion whether a synthesis of NIE and industrial relations research would achieve a deeper understanding of the institutional forms of wage-labour in contemporary capitalist economies.
- Subjects
COLLECTIVE bargaining; INDUSTRIAL relations; NEW institutionalism (Sociology); CAPITALISM; ECONOMIC systems
- Publication
Industrial Relations Journal, 2012, Vol 43, Issue 4, p359
- ISSN
0019-8692
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1468-2338.2012.00688.x