Employment Relations in a Changing World Economy

To address contemporary issues, industrial relations as a field of study will have to take an increasingly international and comparative dimension. Accordingly, Employment Relations in a Changing World Economy looks at the critical role employment relations play in firm performance and industry competitiveness worldwide. The essays employ a common framework to examine changes in the employment practices of eleven OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Austria, and Japan. They constitute the first phase in a large ongoing project at the Center for Industrial Performance at MIT to update our understanding of comparative industrial relations and human resource policies. The authors, scholars in economics, political science, sociology, industrial relations and law, first identify a representative set of employment practices and then look at the outcomes of those practices and the changes they are undergoing across different national settings. By collaborating, the contributors seek to clarify the dynamics of employment relations across the world today, and to set the terms of reference for a new generation of international-comparative employment research.