Keith Abbott

Conceptualising industrial relations in the "risk society"

Abstract This paper contrasts the characteristics of different types of modernities, noting the present transition occurring between its simple and reflexive manifestations. It then demonstrates how mainstream industrial relations theories have long been framed by a collectivist ‘risk insurance principle’. In combining these two observations the argument is made that theories built around institutional dependencies that rely on the evidence or assumption of operable risk insurance principles and collective guardianships of workplace well being make less sense in a world of emerging personal narratives of choice and dependency that centre around individuals taking personal responsibility for avoiding or diminishing the risks of their engagement with uncertain labour markets. The discussion concludes by setting out the social and epistemological conditions under which future industrial relations theorising might be framed so as to accommodate these emerging conditions in a manner that is both realistic and relevant.

Modelling New Public Management in an Asian Context: Public Sector Reform in Malaysia

This article combines the key elements of new public management theories with theories of privatisation and total quality management. The key elements identified in this review are used to establish a general model of new public management. Based on western theorising, the model is acknowledged as having a cultural bias. As a corrective, the article reviews the empirical experience of Malaysian public sector reform between 1980 and 2000, with the findings being used to identifying country-specific characteristics as a means of refining the model in a way that reflects that experience. The discussion concludes by setting out a revised model of new public management which takes account of its application in a Malaysian context. The contention is that the process of enquiry leading to this contingent model of new public management might be adapted along similar lines for the purposes of analysing the application of public sector reform in other developing countries.

Why labour economics is inadequate for theorizing industrial relations

This article challenges the assumed superiority of neo-classical labour economics as a means of theorizing labour unions by applying a critical realist critique to methodologies typically applied in the field. For this purpose, the critique draws on the work of Roy Bhaskar and other critical realists by first situating critical realism within two broad philosophical traditions: classical empiricism and transcendental idealism. It points out the failure of these traditions to acknowledge the possible existence of autonomous structures and objects which are beyond empirically based calculation and conceptualization, arguing instead that such structures and objects can only truly be revealed through research methodologies that make reference to a layered ontology. The discussion then advances on this by outlining the main features of critical realism’s three-way ontology, before providing an example of how this ontological reasoning diminishes the validity of research of labour unions based solely on the type of deductivist methodologies commonly used in labour economics. JEL: B4, J5