Paul Teague

• Queen's University Belfast

This six‐country study includes examination of the institutional context in which public agencies for conflict resolution operate; the internal and external pressures for change in the activities of these agencies, including the shift from collective to individual forms of workplace conflict; the extent to which the changes being introduced are alt...

Since the early 1990s public dispute resolution in Ireland has undergone significant reform. The paper examines external and internal pressures for the reform of conflict resolution in Ireland and reveals the key roles played by senior public servants and conflict management professionals in a system where politics and political divisions had littl...

This article examines whether organizations in Ireland are following their counterparts in the United States and adopting advanced conflict management innovations inspired by alternative dispute resolution. The authors find that the general pattern in Ireland is for organizations to change conflict management practices in a reactive, piecemeal mann...

Big claims that are often unsubstantiated are made about the likely impact of Brexit on the UK labour market. This article seeks to go beyond the rhetoric and present a careful assessment of the employment relations consequences of Brexit for the UK. It addresses four key questions in particular: will Brexit end UK engagement in the EU's free movem...

This article identifies three ways in which alternative dispute resolution (ADR) innovations are adopted by organizations in Ireland: improvisation, incrementalism and strategy, and examines how external and internal influences shape different patterns of ADR innovation. The article contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it highlights...

This article argues that the eurozone crisis has led to Germany hegemony, a feature of which has been complete resistance to a genuinely European solution to the crisis. German political leaders have sought to make the eurozone a more stable currency area by demanding far reaching labour market adjustment in the debtor countries of Greece, Ireland,...

This paper reviews the human resource management literature on the management of workplace conflict. It suggests that workplace conflict is commonly viewed in the literature as a symptom of management failure: the notion that conflict may be intrinsic to the nature of work because employees and managers have hard-to-reconcile competing interests is...

Over the years, an evergreen in the literature on the management of the employment relationship is the observation that organizations will pay a high price if workplace conflict is not addressed quickly and effectively. Days lost to some form of industrial action, sickness and absenteeism rates can be high, and management–employee relations can bec...

Concession or ‘give back’ bargaining involves firms seeking changes in pay and conditions of employment from trade unions in return for pledges of enhanced job security and sometimes other forms of reciprocation. Several distinct modes of concession bargaining are distinguishable in the literature, and three modes of concession bargaining have been...

This article argues that the expansion of individual employment rights is presenting a series of challenges to the collective model of economic citizenship that prevailed in most of the Anglo-American world during the last century. We examine developments in the management of workplace conflict in Anglo-American countries to highlight the instituti...

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become common inter‐organizational arrangements associated with “new public management.” Discussion about their effective operation has often focused on successful management methods, with less discussion about how these arrangements specifically overcome obstacles and problems. In this article, we seek to ad...

From 1987 to 2009, Irish social partnership operated as a national framework for industrial relations. The contribution of the article is twofold. We seek to link the institutional dynamics of social partnership with the Régulation School's notions of modes of accumulation and regimes of régulation. This framework is used to explain the rise and fa...

The issue of concession bargaining between employers and unions during the Great Recession has received little attention in the research literature. This article presents a systematic analysis of the conduct of concession bargaining during the recession in Ireland in the context of three forms of concession bargaining identified in the internationa...

Two contrasting views tend to dominate the literature on the impact of recessions on employment. One view is that recessions amount to a ‘critical conjuncture’ for work and employment systems, a time when firms try to transform radically existing employment models. The alternative perspective is that firms, constrained mostly by the forces of path...

This paper presents the first comprehensive review and assessment of Ireland's influential 15-year experiment with workplace partnership. The paper reviews the outcomes of workplace partnership and explains the limited adoption of partnership in the private and public sectors, drawing on the authors' experiences as participants in policy initiative...

It is widely recognised that the institutional architecture housing monetary union in Europe is deeply flawed. Although there has been considerable discussion about how these shortcomings can be put right, relatively little has been said about the role EU social policy can play in making the eurozone more stable and sustainable. The purpose of this...

The HR practices adopted by firms in response to the current deep and prolonged recession have received little attention in the literature. There are reasons for supposing that firms will adopt HR practices in bundles in responding to the recession in order to benefit from technical and behavioural complementarities. Drawing on a nationally represe...

This chapter sets out to explain the factors behind Ireland's exceptional period of economic growth from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s. It suggests that an unbending commitment to economic openness and an on-going effort to establish quality domestic institutions were the main drivers of the so-called 'Celtic tiger' phenomenon. The commitment to...

These are among the questions answered in Recession at Work, the first systematic study in Europe to deal with the effects of the economic crisis on people at work. Drawing on survey data for Ireland provided by nearly 500 managers responsible for human resources, on focus groups of HR managers and trade union officials, and on detailed case studie...

Recently, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practices have gained increased exposure as a superior way of addressing workplace conflict. Several studies suggest that organizations in the USA have widely diffused some form of ADR. But uncertainty remains about whether this development is peculiar to the USA or whether it marks a more systemic shi...

This article examines the work and roles of HR managers in the Irish recession. It tests the validity of three competing views about the future of HR: that the profession needs to become a business partner; that it is knee-deep in a legitimacy crisis; and that it is fragmenting by being unable to cope with the complexity of modern organizational li...

Employment tribunals were first established to provide a cheap and accessible service for the quick resolution of legally based employment disputes. With the decline of collective industrial relations and the growth of legislation on individual employment rights, employment tribunals have acquired a new prominence. However, in doing so employment t...

Using a large-scale data set, this article considers the role and growing importance of the Rights Commissioners in Ireland. The Rights Commissioners’ service, which has no parallel in any other anglophone industrial relations system, provides an informal and accessible method for the resolution of disputes and the vindication of employment rights....

The most influential current idea in the theory of conflict management concerns the design features and supposed superior outcomes of conflict management systems combining interest‐based and rights‐based practices for resolving conflict in organizations. Yet much of the literature in the area is highly prescriptive and draws heavily either on exemp...

This paper reviews the emergence of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in Ireland and examines the incidence in firms of ADR practices addressing individual and group grievances and disputes. The paper reveals the limited diffusion to date of ADR practices and shows that the uptake of ADR is associated with the degree to which firms have adopted...

This introductory article sets the context for this special edition of the IJHRM on International Trends and Developments in Alternative Dispute Resolution. First of all, it considers some of the conceptual issues that arise in the international study of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) – for example, the importance of not confining the study o...

This article examines the practices adopted by firms in the Republic of Ireland to manage conflict involving groups of employees, focusing in particular on the uptake of ‘alternative dispute resolution practices’. The article reveals that conflict management practices take the form of ‘systems’, and it estimates the incidence of innovative conflict...

In an effort to improve understanding of the role played by line managers in firms, this article examines the role of line managers and supervisors in the management of workplace conflict in firms in the Republic of Ireland. The article finds that while line managers are commonly seen as playing a significant role, they are also seen to do so often...

Foreign-owned multinationals are a dominant feature of the Irish economy. Over the years, there has been an ongoing debate about whether or not the subsidiaries of these multinationals conform to established ‘Irish’ approaches to the management of the employment relationship. One influential view is that non-union multinationals, particularly those...

This article uses a case study of a celebrated enterprise partnership in Ireland that broke down to get an insight into why such arrangements are hard to sustain. The argument of the article is that meaningful enterprise partnerships require trade unions and management to accept agency costs, which in practice involves management modifying their ri...

This article uses the theory of path dependency to explain the evolution of employment conflict resolution systems in Ireland and Sweden. It argues that the traditional 'voluntarist' conflict management path followed in Ireland has fragmented as a result of a series of internal developments that have reduced trade union density, increased the impor...

Labour inspection is an increasingly important part of employment standard-setting, as trade union membership and collective bargaining decline. Research identifies two broad approaches to labour inspection. A defining characteristic of the Latin model is that flexibility and enforcement are successfully combined in the one regulatory regime. In co...

The present system of social partnership in Ireland is in its twentieth year. A range of explanations have been put forward to explain why social partnership has been so durable even though it does not possess the institutional endowments often considered necessary to sustain tripartite industrial relations arrangements. Although these accounts are...

In Ireland there is a widespread belief that the country is moving towards a ‘European model’ of industrial relations. One claim is that the industrial relations system can be now described as social corporatist. Advocates of this view invariably point to the substance and the durability of the latest round of centralized wage agreements in support...

This paper argues that a range of economic and social developments are creating new employment times that are in turn obliging a rethink of established approaches to settling employment grievances in Ireland. In particular, it suggests that the triple influences of social partnership, declining trade union density and the increase in employment leg...

After examining the arguments in favour of social economy activities, this article argues that recent initiatives in this area in the Republic of Ireland have not reached maximum potential. Three factors are regarded as holding back performance. One is that the necessary institutional conditions to promote the social economy have not been establish...

We assess the fortunes of Irish unions since 1980 and, in particular, focus on the period of national social partnership since 1987. We argue that, structurally, unions have been weakened by a sharp decline in union density levels. In addition, labor law reform has not been as permissive as unions desired. However, on the other hand, we highlight t...

This paper examines the impact of the Belfast Agreement on north-south economic cooperation in Ireland, using the tourism industry as a case study. The first part of the paper sets out the suggested benefits that may arise from greater economic and business connections between both parts of the island. It also develops a policy framework that the a...

The big EU enlargement of 2004 has fuelled the debate about whether labour migration from the east to the west is causing social dumping in the European economy, with the effect of upsetting established national systems of labour market regulation. This article reviews the effects of migration on EU labour markets. It also examines three recent ind...

The Irish model of social partnership is considered distinctive as it is based on the principles of deliberative democracy more than adversarial bargaining. The deliberative features of the model are considered to be threefold. First, the negotiations to conclude national social agreements are not confined to the government, trade unions and employ...

A drive for financial integration, especially in the field of securities trading, is a very significant feature of EU policy today. This paper makes a critical assessment of the central component in the financial integration strategy, the Commission's Financial Services Action Plan. It is argued that an exceptional degree of political agreement aro...

This article argues that, despite pessimistic forecasts for their future, social pacts remain a central element of industrial relations across many member states of the European Union. Social pacts provide a mechanism of pragmatic adaptation to the trilemma of reconciling market integration, intergovernmentalism and democratic accountability. In ad...

This paper develops analytical arguments to highlight three distinctive attributes of enterprise partnership. First of all, the literature on the theory of the firm is used to suggest that enterprise partnership represents a credible alternative to the dominant ‘leadership model’ of organizational change. Second, it highlights the organizational fe...

A significant coordination deficit exists between the two economies in Ireland, which, if reduced, could bring mutual economic benefits; however, this does not mean that deeper economic integration can be a conduit to the political unification of Ireland. To the extent that economic integration has a political dimension, it should be about reducing...

The German high-skills/high value-added economy has long been the Mecca for supporters of the European social model. So long as Model Deutschland was thriving the notion of Social Europe was a plausible political project. But Germany is facing a range of economic problems—the aftershock of reunification, high unemployment and internal and external...

This paper focuses on the behaviour and character of enterprises in modern Ireland by examining the extent to which high performance employment practices are being adopted by organisations. This paper draws on the results of an establishment-level survey of work organisation and human resource management practice in three sectors of the Irish econo...

This paper reviews a number of studies that has examined the use of workplace innovations in the Republic of Ireland. It is argued that despite having quite different sampling and technical properties, the surveys reach similar findings on many matters – the high degree of experimentation with innovative work practices, and the piecemeal nature of...

This paper examines the Irish experience of social partnership at organisation level. It argues that three features in particular distinguish the Irish case. One is the importance attached to a procedural consensus to advance partnership. Another is the stress placed on experimental action in the development of these arrangements. A third character...

Together the macroeconomic and financial attributes of monetary union are changing the rules governing the European economy. This paper assesses the consequences of these changes for employment relations in member states. The analysis focuses on three matters in particular. First, how labour market actors are responding to the fact that macroeconom...

This paper examines the labour-standard-setting institution associated with NAFTA, the North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation (NAALC), sometimes referred to as the Labour Side Accord. The agreement is best described as a tri-national institutional arrangement that grafts formal international procedures onto domestic labour market regimes. T...

This article examines the effect which the evolving system of European Economic government is having on national corporatist type deals. This is done by first outlining the institutional formation of European Economic government and second examining two case studies - one from Finland and one from Ireland.

This article examines the effect which the evolving system of European Economic government is having on national corporatist type deals. This is done by first outlining the institutional formation of European Economic government and second examining two case studies—one from Finland and one from Ireland.

This paper examines the labour standard-setting capacities of the EU and NAFTA. The social dimension to the EU is depicted as being organised along the principles of deliberative supranationalism. The North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation (NAALC), sometimes referred to as the Labour Side Accord, which is the labour standard-setting arrange...

This article argues that EU social policy has weakened the long established bond between economic citizenship and the nation-state yet is unable to establish a fully-formed European replacement model. Part of the explanation lies within the unstable institutional design of EU social policy. At first a fairly pragmatic style of policy-making was use...

Enterprises can gain competitive advantage by increasing employee skills. Yet, mainstream theory suggests that they are reluctant to engage in training because of market failures. Together with administrative failures in national training systems, this can lead to an economy-wide under-provision of skills. Tightly co-ordinated labour markets that e...

Ireland's system of social partnership, in place from 1987 to 2009, included initiatives to promote and support partnership at enterprise and organisational level. This included the creation of a National Centre for Partnership and Performance (NCPP). In 2000, the Department of the Taoseach (prime minister) commissioned this evaluation of progress...

This article examines recent developments in the published work of prominent members of the French Regulation School. It is argued that major revisions are taking place in the school's assessment of contemporary capitalist systems. In particular, the primacy attached to employment relationships is under question, as is the emphasis on distinct nati...

This paper argues that European integration has constrained the discretion of industrial relations actors. The result has been not the widely predicted institutional fragmentation of collective bargaining, but a change in the" functioning" of these systems. At the same time, widespread 'social dumping' on the part of firms and member states has not...

This paper surveys the direction of change to employment regimes in the EU, in which fiscal consolidation constitutes the macro-economic foundations to labour markets in virtually every member-state. Attempting to address budget deficits has had important spillover effects, most notably on the conduct of pay determination. In particular, multi-tier...

Labour market institutions in most European countries are caught mid-stream between flexibility and coordination. On the one hand, most countries fail to capture the positive externalities that may arise from the mutual interdependence of institutions and ground level labour market behaviour. Productive and commercial changes make it exceptionally...

Many explanations have emerged for Ireland's dramatic economic recovery, but virtually all have taken a macroeconomic perspective. This paper enriches our understanding of recent progress by presenting original survey data on establishment-level work organisation and human resource innovations. The survey indicates that most Irish establishments ar...

Traditionally the German employment system has been hailed as the surpreme example of how a symbiosis between equity and efficiency can be established in an economic system. A defining characteristic of the German employment system is how the world of work is embedded in a highly co‐ordinated system of industrial relations institutions inside and o...

A popular argument is that deeper European integration along with moves towards productive decentralization will recast existing governance structures for the labour market. In particular, it is suggested that national industrial relations systems may gradually give way to regional employment systems. This paper takes a critical look at this thesis...

There is widespread concern about the relative poor performance of the European labour market. A particular worry is the high and persistent levels of unemployment in the region. Perhaps the two most influential approaches to remedying Europe's labour market problems are New Keynesianism and the deregulation perspective. New Keynesianism, as the la...

EU social policy is perhaps the most controversial aspect of European integration yet, despite all the political clashes on the matter, concepts like “social Europe” or “social dimension” remain ill-defined and imprecise terms. Intends to outline and clarify in detail the debate about whether or not the European Union should have competence with re...

In this paper, there is an assessment of the likelihood of the social dimension of the 1992 EC programme amounting to a new model of social development for the community. The conclusion is that the centripetal forces required for the creation of a fully fledged social union are absent from the integration process. Hence, despite the upsurge of Euro...

The market orientation of the 1992 European Community programme has given way to a range of other projects involving institutional integration. Issues such as European Monetary Union and the EC Social Charter now dominate the Community's policy agenda. Inducing this shift from ‘negative’ to ‘positive’ integration was a growing realisation that inst...

After virtually two decades on the side lines, European level collective bargaining is back on the industrial relations agenda. To a large extent, the resurgence ofthis notion can be attributed to the impact of the EC's 1992 programme on European economic and political life. This article examines whether any significant changes or new developments...

To resolve the high unemployment rates in many Western European countries, the notion of labour market flexibility has been gaining favour with academics and policy‐makers. This article examines the notion of labour market flexibility in detail and assesses the extent to which it has been implemented in West Germany, Britain and France. It is argue...

The evolution of EC industrial policy is presented in three phases; competition policy, crisis management, systemic adaptation. The third phase includes a range of initiatives towards a technological community, among them Eureka. It is argued that the official rationale for this project, the need to meet a competitive threat in high technology from...

This paper sets out to explain the factors behind Ireland.s exceptional period of economic growth from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s. It suggests that an unbending commitment to economic openness and an on-going effort to establish quality domestic institutions were the main drivers of the so-called .Celtic tiger. phenomenon. The commitment to e...