Strategy in Digi Company

OXFORD REVIEW OF ECONOMIC POLICY. VOL. 7, NO. 1

THE REDISCOVERY OF THE MANAGEMENT PREROGATIVE: THE MANAGEMENT OF LABOUR RELATIONS IN THE 1980s
JOHNPURCELL
Templeton College, Oxford

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I. INTRODUCTION
Restructuring and the process of deregulation has been especially marked in the field of labour relations. Institutional changes in the scope and level of collective bargaining, in union recognition, and in dispute resolution procedures have been the hallmark of the decade closely associated with the rediscovery of the management prerogative. Words such as 'transformation ', 'the new industrial relations ', and 'productivity miracle ' were commonly used towards the end of the decade to describe the process of change and the marked break with the past (e.g. Bassett, 1986). It is not the purpose of this paper to assess the extent to which changes have occurred, or to predict how permanent they may be. Nor is it proposed to debate the relative contribution of legislative change, international competi-

tive pressure, changes in the domestic economy, and shifts in managerial and union attitudes to the achievement of change. A familiar list of authorities provide evidence and counter evidence on the degree and type of change (Maclnnes 1987,1989; Metcalf, 1989; Brown and Wadhwani, 1990; Nolan and Marginson, 1990; Oulton, 1990; Beardwell, 1990; Kelly and Richardson, 1989). The aim of this paper is to describe and assess the underlying changes in large companies in management thinking and strategic intentions towards the management of labour in the 1980s. This concerns primarily the development of the firm-specific labour market and organization-based employment systems in contrast to the traditional reliance on the external labour market for labour supply, and on industry-wide wage-fixing institutions for the determination of basic terms and conditions of em-

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