The Many Meanings of Co‐Operation in the Employment Relationship and Their Implications

Abstract

Co‐operation in the employment relationship continues to be a widely lauded goal, but academics, practitioners and policy makers rarely define the concept or analyse systematically its variants. This is problematic because a lack of clarity is a significant barrier to academic discourse and practical implementation in many organizations and countries. This article therefore carefully develops a framework that results in six key perspectives on co‐operation rooted in five assumptions. In addition to fostering a deeper understanding of co‐operation, these six perspectives can be used to theorize alternative employment relations paradigms when co‐operation rather than conflict is viewed as the central construct. Moreover, a dynamic analysis of these six perspectives adds new insights to understanding the challenges of achieving and sustaining truly co‐operative regimes, while also highlighting the need to go beyond structures and practices by incorporating the role of ideas in analyses of the success or failure of co‐operative efforts.

The Potential of Labour−Management Partnership: A Longitudinal Case Analysis

“…We would contend that on balance BuSoc can be viewed as a partially successful, generally sustainable and resilient example of LMP in a liberal market context. However, the case also confirms the precariousness of voluntary cooperation (as all parties recognize in our case) as well as the risk of parties too easily retreating from such arrangements at any time (Bray, Budd and Macneil, ; Dobbins and Dundon, ). Our study also demonstrates the utility of the Bray, Budd and Macneil () framework in encouraging a more dynamic analysis of the dominant trends over time.…”

“…The point is that, in addition to distributive issues such as pay, there was also clear evidence of regular consultation and joint working on more integrative issues. This is consistent with what Bray, Budd and Macneil () term collaborative pluralism.…”

“…This resulted in a period of low trust adversarialism although some pockets of cooperation managed to survive. This confirmed both the fragility of voluntarist collaborative regimes on the one hand (Bray, Budd and Macneil, ) and the resilience of collaborative working and importance of actor agency on the other. The phase is best described as a period of adversarial pluralism albeit with some isolated but enduring examples of collaborative pluralism.…”

“…Perhaps the key controversy regarding labour−management cooperation is that it is difficult to sustain (Bray, Budd and Macneil, ; Danford and Richardson, ; Dobbins and Dundon, ; Simms, ). For Marxist IR radicals, this is due to the irreconcilable class conflict inherent within capitalism regimes (Danford and Richardson, ; Kelly, ).…”

“…A cooperation curve capturing the challenging dynamics of cooperation in the employment relationship (source: Bray, Budd and Macneil, ) [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]…”