Addressing the productivity challenge? Government-sponsored partnership programs in Australia and New Zealand

The role of institutional and intermediary forces in shaping patterns of employee involvement and participation (EIP) in Anglo-American countries

“…It also extends institutional analysis by including intermediary forces alongside 'hard' and 'soft' institutional forces unlike other studies (e.g. Macneil et al, 2011) which examined only the last of these, so this paper therefore fills the gap identified by Edwards et al (2002). This is also relevant for HRM more generally; in reward for example, intermediary forces represented by professional associations, pay…”

“…Stuart et al (2011) refer to these initiatives as 'soft' regulation because they are not enshrined in law and do not compel employers to implement specific EIP practices but rather persuade them to adopt the principles of mutuality. Macneil et al (2011) use the same term to describe the partnership experiment in New Zealand, while Doherty (2008) opts for 'soft edge' in the case of Ireland. Irrespective of terminology, the point is that employers in AA countries tend to oppose 'hard' institutions in order to retain flexibility and choice when implementing EIP.…”

“…While this is understandable given the choices open to employers in these countries (Brewster, 2007;Dundon, Wilkinson, Marchington, & Ackers, 2004;Kaufman, 2013), even the most lightly regulated economies do not operate in a complete institutional void because forms of EIP are either shaped significantly by legislation and deeply embedded national business systems (Colvin & Darbishire, 2013;Wailes, Bamber, & Lansbury, 2011) or promoted by permanent or temporary government-funded initiatives (Macneil, Haworth, & Rasmussen, 2011;Stuart, Martinez-Lucio, & Robinson, 2011). These are termed 'hard' and 'soft' institutional forces, respectively.…”

Varieties of collaboration: the case of an Australian retail union

“…Other national approaches lack a legislative basis and are strongly voluntarist, but have government support and funding: UK 'partnership agreements' are one such model (Brown and Oxenbridge 2004;Kelly 2004;Wilkinson 2009, 2010). In Australia and New Zealand, there have been only episodic attempts at 'soft' intervention as a means to promote collaboration, such as via a 'best practice' programme in Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Macneil, Haworth and Rasmussen 2011). We argue that these varied types of collaboration are best analysed using a conceptual framework that takes a 'deeper' account of what collaboration actually is.…”

Developing Positive Employment Relations

“…Partnership was popularised in Ireland following a national social partnership programme introduced in 1987, and promoted in the 1990s as part of the 'Partnership 2000' agenda which encouraged employers and trade unions to introduce cooperative arrangements at the workplace level (Roche and Teague 2014 ;Teague and Donaghey 2015 ). In Australia, partnership was promoted as part of 'best practice' through the Australian Best Practice Demonstration Program established by the Labour government in the early 1990s, and also reappeared briefl y under the Gillard government in 2010 (Macneil et al 2011 ). Policy interest in partnership has also waxed and waned in New Zealand, especially in the public sector (Macneil et al 2011 ).…”