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Business or Association? The Strategic Responses of Employer Associations to the Decentralisation of Bargaining in Australia

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  • Peter Sheldon
  • Louise Thornthwaite

Abstract

Decentralisation of bargaining poses particular challenges for employer associations. It reduces the sense of collective identity among members, decreases the attraction of associations' traditional collective goods and increases the urgency and array of individual member needs while increasing the costs of servicing them. Decentralisation also threatens revenue as large companies, the financial backbone of associations, shift employment relations activities in-house. This weakens the attractions of membership with the risk that employer associations will retain only smaller, heavily dependent members. We discuss employer association attempts to meet these challenges while competing with commercial service businesses. Their strategic choices lie on a continuum between traditional membership-based organisational identity, with its roots in movement as well as organisation, and one that more closely approximates a business services firm. Associations experiment along this continuum as they develop strategy iteratively and the article identifies factors that help determine their choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Sheldon & Louise Thornthwaite, 2004. "Business or Association? The Strategic Responses of Employer Associations to the Decentralisation of Bargaining in Australia," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 15(1), pages 128-158, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:15:y:2004:i:1:p:128-158
    DOI: 10.1177/103530460401500106
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Schmitter, Philippe C. & Streeck, Wolfgang, 1999. "The organization of business interests: Studying the associative action of business in advanced industrial societies," MPIfG Discussion Paper 99/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
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    1. In Jun & Peter Sheldon, 2006. "Looking beyond the West? The Korea Employers' Federation and the Challenges of Membership Adhesion and Cohesion," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 17(1), pages 203-225, September.
    2. Peter Sheldon & Raoul Nacamulli & Francesco Paoletti & David E. Morgan, 2016. "Employer Association Responses to the Effects of Bargaining Decentralization in Australia and Italy: Seeking Explanations from Organizational Theory," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 160-191, March.
    3. Christian Lyhne Ibsen & Lisa Sezer & Virginia Doellgast, 2023. "Coordination versus organization: Diverging logics of firm cooperation in Denmark and Sweden," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(3), pages 526-549, September.

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