Theories of high commitment management (HCM) ascribe a central role to high trust relationships between management and labour if organisations are to achieve high performance (Legge, 2005; Appelbaum et al, 2000). However, such relations are difficult to achieve within the capitalist employment relationship, particularly so within liberal market economies such as the UK (Godard, 2002; Hall and Soskice, 2001). Employee involvement (EI) and participation initiatives potentially constitute a principal mechanism through which trust may be achieved, although wider evidence suggests that desired performance improvements may only accrue where participation is'meaningful' (Delbridge and Whitfield, 2001). Conversely, EI can be used to intensify the work process and achieve tighter control, although whether this is done through managerial 'commission' or 'omission' remains open to debate. This study sought to explore these questions. The critical realist paradigm was deemed to be the most appropriate methodological approach, and a'firm-insector' approach was applied. This facilitated investigation of meso-level, as well as macro-level, effects on enterpriselevel processes and outcomes. Four manufacturing plants, drawn from the pharmaceuticals and automotive components sectors, constituted the units of analysis. It was postulated that the pharmaceuticals sector might constitute a more conducive environment in which to cultivate trust. Conversely, it was averred that the encroachment of the 'customer' into the management of the employment relationship within the components supply business might encourage a control orientation. In keeping with a general predilection of British management, it was found that 'genuine' trust existed in none of the organisations at the time of the fieldwork (Thompson, 2003; Claydon, 1998). Management sought to (or had done so) substitute 'meaningless' EI for collective organisation. However, at two of the plants, employees reported previous instances where trust had existed. Significantly, this was not confined to the pharmaceutical sector. This facilitated identification of the antecedent conditions necessary for trust to develop, namely a value orientation on the part of senior management, strong organisational performance, effective trade unionism and participative, 'informal' management styles.

This research aims to examine worker and union outcomes of labourmanagement partnership and, to assess whether partnership provides a viable option for union revival. The research was carried out using a large-scale employee data from two matched pairs of partnership and non-partnership organizations in the health and civil services in Britain. Worker and union outcomes of formal partnership arrangements were measured at the organizational level and those of informal partnership arrangements were measured at the workplace and employee levels (Oxenbridge 2002, 2004). The analysis of quantitative data was supplemented with a large numbers of in depth interviews of workers, union representatives and managers from the case study organizations. Primary data analysis was supplemented with the analysis of a secondary data set called the British Workplace Representation and Participation Survey (BWRPS). The BWRPS is a large representative data set of the UK workforce (Diamond and Freeman 2001). The empirical data was analysed by using two contrasting theoretical approaches to labour-management partnership namely: the institutional theory and the political economy approach (Kelly 2004a, b). Findings from this research indicate that workers and unIOns In partnership arrangements had better access to information on employment related matters and greater direct employee participation in workplace level decisions. However, access to information or direct employee participation did not translate into better bargaining outcomes such as payor job security nor did partnership help unions to improve their membership levels and organization. To the contrary, unions who engaged in partnership with management suffered a 2decline in their membership levels and erOSIOn of shop steward structures. Compared to partnership. rank-and-file organizing offered better prospects of union revival. These findings have been discussed within the competing theoretical frameworks of the institutional approach and the political economy approach to partnership

In the early 1990s, South Africa’s re-entry into the competitive global marketplace and the first non-racial elections brought significant changes to an industry previously plagued by the racialisation of the labour process. South Africa’s post-apartheid work order led to the restructuring of the gold mining workplace, with a greatly increased emphasis on efficiency, productivity and equity. This period saw a number of gold mines reorganising work through new forms of working practices aimed at creating new kinds of workers who could identify with the goals of the company by expending rather than withdrawing effort at the point of production. There was a shift in the attitude of worker responses to managerial practices, from coercion to consent in the day-to-day running of the production process. This thesis examines worker responses to the reorganisation of work and their impact on worker and workplace productivity in a deep-level gold mine. At the core of this thesis are the perceptions, views, experiences and reactions displayed by underground work teams to management initiatives. The thesis highlights the significance of worker agency in managerially defined work structures – the capacity of underground gold miners to reshape and adapt management strategies in ways that make sense and enable them to maintain control over production and the effort-bargain. The findings presented in this thesis, particularly the gold miners’ informal or coping strategy of making a plan (planisa), reveal that underground work teams are not merely passive or docile reactors to management initiatives. They find opportunity to manipulate (and where necessary, avoid) new forms of management control in a variety of innovative ways that enable them to reassert their power and autonomy over their working day. Underground gold miners are not simply appendages to nor alienated beings in the production process but are able to take control of the production process, independent of management prescriptions, in ways which may embody resistance, consent or a subtle combination of the two. The thesis calls attention to workers’ subjective orientation, agency and resilience to new work structures – not just as recipients but also as shapers of such new work structures within the politics, limits and contradictions of capitalist production systems.