Adrian Wilkinson

Griffith University · Centre for Work, Organisation and Well Being

This introduction assesses the international impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on work and employment. It outlines conceptually why industrial relations institutions matter for shaping policy choices across different countries. This includes countries in the Global South that are not covered by conventional varieties of capitalism theories. An impor...

Voice mechanisms in organizations provide an opportunity for employees to have a say about their work. As new digital mechanisms, such as social media (SM), are being increasingly adopted by organizations for knowledge sharing, employee engagement and general communication, it is important to consider the extent to which SM may facilitate employee...

This paper examines the role of HR practices in shaping inbound open innovation outcomes through the lens of the competency, motivation and opportunity (CMO) model. The paper investigates the aforementioned associations by considering the intervening roles of organizational learning culture and knowledge sharing. The data were collected from manage...

Remote working caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has eroded boundaries between work and home, necessitating the need to evaluate the long-term impacts of these changes and mitigate any negative effects on workers’ work-life experiences. To do so, we reviewed and examined work-life research published since the start of the pandemic. The review yielded...

Our paper examines how the work of Mick Marchington integrated older forms of employee participation with newer patterns of employee involvement. The paper shows how Employee Involvement and Participation (EIP) is central to contemporary Human Resource Management (HRM) in four distinct ways: first is the ‘theoretical’ integration of pluralism into...

The ‘psychologisation’ of the human resource management (HRM) and industrial relations (IR) has been a major topic of conversation in management journals, not least in HRMJ (Farndale et al., 2020). We contribute to this debate by focussing on employee voice as an important topic of scholarship, and by explaining how this topic has been psychologise...

Purpose The authors consider stage theories of human resource management (HRM) to explore how new companies experiencing high levels of growth face the dual pressures of youth and expansion. Design/methodology/approach The firms in this study are a sub-group of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) called “gazelles”. While this is a qualitative stud...

Purpose The aim of this study is to explore and unpack the notion of lateral voice within the context of a Chinese hospital. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative design was used, involving interviews of 24 medical personnel from a public hospital in mainland China. This included two focus groups (eight participants each) of physicians and nur...

Grounded in the job demands–resources (JD-R) theory, this study investigates how the difficulty in social distancing at work, resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, may lead to intention to quit and career regret and how and when these effects may be attenuated. Three-wave survey data were collected from 223 frontline service workers in a large resta...

Solidarity behaviour (SB) among employees is important in building a sense of community in organizations, particularly within a crisis context where adverse working conditions prevail. However, we have limited knowledge concerning how SB develops. Using the lens of social exchange theory, this study examines how top‐down communication and employee...

High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) research is based on the search for the most suitable bundle of complementary practices appropriate for the organisation and its operating environment. We examine the contents of a HPWS in organisations seeking impeccable safety and reliability as their foremost ‘performance’ outcome. We propose a ‘High Reliabil...

Managerial attitudes are often seen as critical to sustainable employee participation practices, yet very little is known about how managers act within employee voice fora. We examine managements' decision to actively consult with employees, and by doing so contribute to industrial relations debates concerning the role of managerial prerogative and...

While there are a number of dimensions to sustainability, ranging from the environmental to the social, a common assumption in the literature is that firms from the mature markets are more likely to have the capacity and indeed, rationale to take sustainability more seriously. Emerging market counterparts, MNEs included, are seen to lag behind in s...

This paper aims to encourage a debate on the proposed transactive relationship between voice and contemporary social, economic and technological (SET) developments. Specifically, we propose that SET developments change how work is approached, organized and designed, and that these changes challenge employee rights, roles and responsibilities. How e...

In this paper, we explore how the pressure to deliver high performance influences line managers in their shaping and repurposing of employee voice mechanisms to encourage improvement‐oriented voice in organizations. Using qualitative data (50 semi‐structured interviews) from two case studies, including a manufacturing organization and a university,...

This paper constructs alternative balanced scorecards based on high‐performance work system (HPWS) and employment relations system (ERS) models. The models are depicted and compared in diagrams and used as framework skeletons for building separate HPWS and ERS scorecards, intended to provide a detailed data picture of the operational health and per...

The ‘frames of reference’ concept has been a significant and enduring feature of industrial/employment relations since being developed by Alan Fox; and yet there has been only limited scholarly research seeking to develop the frames. We introduce this special issue by reviewing the extant literature on frames which provides a backdrop to the five a...

The frames of reference model developed by Fox, and extended by a number of other authors, is arguably the central paradigm framework in the employment/industrial relations field. Despite its importance and popularity, use of frames of reference to structure empirical analysis and develop hypotheses is relatively rare and, to the best of our knowle...

Purpose Paramedics' work environment is constantly changing and unpredictable. Controlling environmental risks is difficult for the HR department and requires support of external systems such as unions and policymakers. Acknowledging environmental complexity, and the interaction of external systems, this study examines how the HRM system manages an...

Encouraging and facilitating employee voice among frontline employees is important in organisations to draw out problems and issues that can potentially be addressed and mitigated by organisational policies and practices. Using Conservation of Resources theory, this study focuses on paramedics and the formal and informal voice mechanisms used to sa...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model drawing together and integrating research from employment relations (ER), human resource management (HRM) and organizational behaviour (OB) to identify how high-performance work systems (HPWS) encourage voice behaviour. Design/methodology/approach The authors identify shortcomings...

This introduction introduces the special issue on employee voice in the Asia Pacific. Whilst there is an extensive literature on employee voice in western countries in regions such as Europe and the United States, we know less about the state of employee voice in the Asia Pacific regions. One of these gaps relates to how the institutional factors a...

Different disciplines have studied employee voice as a key component of workplaces. However, they have not tended to look at voice as a journey en route to enhanced (or diminished) employee voice with a start, diversion, delay and combining twists and turns during processes leading to outcomes. In this article, we build on existing theory and pheno...

This paper examines the determinants of job‐related training and workplace voice. Using data from a unique 2016 cross‐national survey of Australian, British, Canadian and American employees, the paper contrasts two classic formulations in the literature; (1) the neoclassical/human capital approach which predicts that individual characteristics (suc...

Purpose The implementation of performance management is the responsibility of managers; more importantly, a key part of a frontline manager's role is ensuring that frontline employees are performing by meeting organisational goals. Existing research has shown a lack of focus on the role of frontline managers in the implementation of performance man...

The global financial crisis (GFC) placed many organisations under extreme pressure to make substantive changes to their businesses. This paper looks at the approach of managers in the luxury hotel sector towards employee management. In a sector that is characterised by high staff turnover and a high use of contingent labour we found that in our thr...

Throughout the last 20 years many countries have pursued an agenda seeking more collaborative management-union arrangements or 'partnerships'. The current workplace industrial relations (IR) legislation in Australia suggests a shift towards a new model of workplace interaction that includes more collaboration and partnerships. Former Prime Minister...

introduction to the book on the Future of Work

This research examines a newer breed of globally mobile international employee, older academic international business travellers (AIBTs). This is the first study to examine older academics who retire or reduce their responsibilities but continue to work – and to work internationally. Using semi-structured interviews with older academics from Austra...

The book charts a forward-looking agenda for employment relations research. The book maps out the important intellectual boundaries for their field of research, outlines the key research needs and links this research agenda back to how it should inform practice. In doing so, we look first at current research topics such as the rise of the gig econo...

Case Studies in Work, Employment and Human Resource Management is both a critical and pragmatic appraisal of how people are managed at work. The book is especially suited to in-class learning applications, providing a bank of more than 40 evidence-based case studies derived from international research. Each case is easily accessible and written by...

Managerial attitudes are often seen as vital to the existence of highly developed and sustainable employee voice practices. Using evidence from a two-year qualitative study of I&C participants in two organizations in the UK, we focus on managerial perspectives of trust among the parties involved to voice. The data identifies that trust facilitates...

This article provides an innovative defence of codetermination by way of exploring two of the most significant theorised objections to it from neo‐liberal and libertarian perspectives, namely the defence of the right to manage as freely chosen by employees and employers alike, and the right to manage being the most efficient, lowest transaction cos...

This editorial lays out 30 years of history of Human Resource Management Journal (HRMJ), charting the journal's roots, reflecting on HRM scholarship today and guiding authors on potential contributions to the journal in the future. HRMJ has achieved high recognition and ranking internationally since its conception originally as a UK‐based journal....

Using data from the 2013 European Company Survey, this article presents a study of employee involvement and participation (EIP) in decision-making in 12 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, a context that is rather less studied but interesting because of its political past and its current emerging economic status. The study explores how th...

In this paper we show how trust and justice influence the efficacy of employee information and consultation (I&C) bodies. Evidence is drawn from a 2‐year qualitative study of I&C participants in two organizations in the UK. The research builds on Dietz and Fortin's conceptual five‐stage model of the I&C process to provide a more nuanced understandi...

Purpose Exposure to high-trauma work has been associated with negative outcomes for individuals and organisations. Support for these employees can buffer and protect against mental health problems. Frontline managers (FLMs) are well placed to provide for employee support needs but are often not effective in doing so. The purpose of this paper is to...

The global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2009 resulted in the most severe recession the world has encountered since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although the GFC had very uneven effects around the world, including those on work and employment, it also highlighted the interconnectedness of different national orders, and the continued importan...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to take a serious look at the relationship between joint consultation systems at the workplace and employee satisfaction, while at the same time accounting for the (possible) interactions with similar union and management-led high commitment strategies. Design/methodology/approach Using new, rich data on a repre...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to take a serious look at the relationship between joint consultation systems at the workplace and employee satisfaction, while at the same time accounting for the (possible) interactions with similar union and management-led high commitment strategies. Design/methodology/approach Using new, rich data on a re...

Objective: This study aimed to establish whether longitudinal participation in an accreditation program is translated into improvement in continuity of quality patient care and human resource management (HRM) processes outcomes. Materials and methods: This was a secondary data analysis of accreditation panel data from acute hospitals participati...

Investigation of potential factors behind managers’ attitudes towards workplace information and consultation (I&C) for employees has received relatively little attention thus far, with some exceptions (Dundon et al., 2005), despite recognising that such attitudes are important to the existence of highly developed and sustainable employee participat...

This chapter discusses the early conceptualisation of employee voice within the human resource management, employment relations and organisational behaviour disciplines. The chapter identifies the significant turning points within the literature and the resultant divergent pathways that these disciplines took with regard to the conceptualisation an...

Digital society has emerged from and is expected to develop further via digitizing, big data analytics, ICT, AI, access to online information in almost real time, and informed decision making processes and data driven management. According to the contributions in this book, which are all research-based, big data analytics is considered the core of...

While there is a plethora of research on people management and high-commitment management, most are focused on commercial enterprises. Even the high-commitment management literature on commercial organisations argues that we need to move beyond the confines of financial performance. There are relatively few studies of high-commitment management whi...

Despite the scholarly interest in performance management as a key determinant of the effectiveness of enterprise process improvement methods such as total quality management (TQM) and its derivatives, few empirical studies have explicitly explored the practice of performance management systems in TQM‐focused organizations. In order to redress this...

In the concluding chapter of a volume on employee voice John Budd (2014) noted that interest in the subject matter has never been stronger. There are two points to make about this comment. First it is apparent that that there is a burgeoning literature on voice and second, that interest in voice is spread across a number of academic disciplinary ar...

Comprising five thematic sections, this volume provides a critical, international and interdisciplinary exploration of employment relations. It examines the major subjects and emerging areas within the field, including essays on institutional theory, voice, new actors, precarious work and employment. Led by a well-respected team of editors, the con...

This chapter locates the emergence and significance of key intersections of Human Resource Management (HRM) and Employment Relations (ER) in a threefold manner. First, the chapter traces the origins of HRM, highlighting the importance of longstanding domain assumptions which formed the conceptual heritage of the term. Second, the chapter explores k...

Global supply chains are not just instruments for the exchange of economic goods and flow of capital across borders. They also connect people in unprecedented ways across social and cultural boundaries and have created new, interrelated webs of social relationships that are socially embedded. However, most of the existing theories of work are mainl...

This study, and the project behind it, is an attempt 100 years on from the Webbs to comprehensively assess the health of the industrial relations/employment relations system by ‘taking the pulse’ of the employment relationship. If, as we argue, the relative health and performance of the employment relationship remains the key dependent variable of...

Purpose The aims of this paper are, first, to explain why a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens arises from the digital society. Second, we explore some core elements of the competition between the new model of the provision of welfare services and the classic ideal model of the professionals´ provision of welfare services....

The industrial relations (IR) field in Canada and the United States (US) emerged in the late 1910s-early 1920s and is thus on the cusp of its 100th anniversary. The impetus for the creation of the IR field was growing public alarm in both countries over the escalating level of conflict, violence, and class polarization in employer-employee relation...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in the degree of innovation in employment relations (ER) between emerging and established firms, Design/methodology/approach A large national telephone survey ( N =1,416) of both emerging (<5 years) and established firms was conducted. Findings Emerging firms were more casualised, less u...

Issues of labour−management cooperation have long attracted the attention of management researchers, practitioners and policymakers. In Britain, the most recent wave of interest has been under the rubric of labour−management partnership, normally concerning the development of cooperative relations between unions and employers. A recurring theme is...

This article reviews and consolidates the most recent literature on comparative institutional analysis, and links this to endemic crises, continuities, bounded diversity and change in HRM practice within and between nations. It is argued that national institutional arrangements both support and sustain particular sets of HR practice, but this is al...

This article draws on the sociology of Bourdieu to explore how academics respond to managerialist imperatives. Bourdieu's metaphor of the game is applied to a case study of a regional Australian university, which underwent significant changes in 2007, the most notable being the introduction of performance appraisals. In-depth interviews (N=20) reve...

In high performing human resource management (HRM) systems, much responsibility for managing employees and associated processes is typically devolved to frontline managers (FLMs). Research indicates that undeveloped FLM HRM ability can impact performance, particularly in health-care organisations. We present the incidence and characteristics of HRM...

Although effective International Human Resource Management during an international assignment constitutes a significant factor in ensuring success of an expatriate assignment, there has not been much research that studies the expatriation practices associated with the global delivery model that has come to be identified with global outsourcing. The...

In this commentary we note that there is increasing interest in the topic of employee voice; however, we argue that there has been little effort to broaden our existing conceptualizations of voice, which are artefacts of disparate disciplines. The siloed approach, we argue, applies in particular to the view of voice in the field of organizational b...

Is there a distinctive ‘India Way’ of doing business? This query finds resonance not only among corporate leaders but also in academic studies focussing on emerging market multinational enterprises (EMMNEs) in Asia. The speed and spread of EMMNEs has caught the world by surprise, and prompted a need to understand whether, why, and how multinational...