IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v63y2009i1p24-41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic Choices in Pluralist and Unitarist Employment Relations Regimes: A Study of Australian Telecommunications

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Ross
  • Greg J. Bamber

Abstract

Using interview data collected between 1992 and 2009, the authors explore how deregulation of the Australian telecommunications sector and re-regulation of the labor market affected employment relations (ER) strategies at Telstra, Australia's former telecommunications monopoly. Labor market re-regulation reversed much of the previous institutional support for union activity, and unions struggled to adjust to this changed institutional context. Telstra's ER strategies included large-scale downsizing and outsourcing. It moved dramatically toward unitarist (anti-union) ER approaches, with a shift away from collective bargaining toward individual employment contracts. This history raises a more general question of the extent to which employers make strategic ER choices autonomously and the extent to which such choices reflect the influence of the national institutional context. The authors conclude that while the changing institutional context—in this case, primarily government regulation—facilitated Telstra's strategic choices, management ideology was an important intervening variable in determining such choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Ross & Greg J. Bamber, 2009. "Strategic Choices in Pluralist and Unitarist Employment Relations Regimes: A Study of Australian Telecommunications," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 63(1), pages 24-41, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:63:y:2009:i:1:p:24-41
    DOI: 10.1177/001979390906300102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979390906300102
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979390906300102?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van Kranenburg, H.L. (Hans) & Hagedoorn, John, 2008. "Strategic focus of incumbents in the European telecommunications industry: The cases of BT, Deutsche Telekom and KPN," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 116-130, March.
    2. Carroll, Glenn R. & Teece, David J. (ed.), 1999. "Firms, Markets, and Hierarchies: The Transaction Cost Perspective," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195119510.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreas Kornelakis, 2016. "Inclusion or Dualization? The Political Economy of Employment Relations in Italian and Greek Telecommunications," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(2), pages 385-408, June.
    2. Michalski, Hans-Jürgen, 2015. "Der Wandel der Telekommunikationsindustrie im 21. Jahrhundert: Eine international vergleichende Analyse der Unternehmensstrukturen und -strategien weltweit führender Telekommunikationskonzerne," Study / edition der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf, volume 127, number 296.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2006. "Information Gathering, Transaction Costs, and the Property Rights Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 422-434, March.
    2. Michalski, Hans-Jürgen, 2015. "Der Wandel der Telekommunikationsindustrie im 21. Jahrhundert: Eine international vergleichende Analyse der Unternehmensstrukturen und -strategien weltweit führender Telekommunikationskonzerne," Study / edition der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf, volume 127, number 296.
    3. Navio-Marco, J & Solorzano-Garcia, M & Urueña, A., 2015. "Language As Key Factor Of Long-Term Value Creation In Mergers And Acquisitions In The Telecommunications Sector," 26th European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2015 127170, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    4. Hans van Kranenburg & Gerrit Willem Ziggers, 2013. "Dynamic competition and ambidexterity," Chapters, in: Ruth Towse & Christian Handke (ed.), Handbook on the Digital Creative Economy, chapter 6, pages 57-66, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Lars Kumkar, 2003. "Regulatory Choices and Commitment: Challenges for Electricity Market Regulation in Kosovo," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 91-115.
    6. Lukasz Hardt, 2011. "An inquiry into the explanatory virtues of transaction cost economics," The Journal of Philosophical Economics, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 120-147, November.
    7. Wangsik Kim, 2008. "The Context of EU Telecommunications Reform Process: The Cases of Britain and Germany," International Review of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 117-136, May.
    8. Kashani, Hossein A., 2005. "Regulation and efficiency: an empirical analysis of the United Kingdom continental shelf petroleum industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 915-925, May.
    9. Moreno, Plácido & Lozano, Sebastián & Gutiérrez, Ester, 2013. "Dynamic performance analysis of U.S. wireline telecommunication companies," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 469-482.
    10. Clifton, Judith & Díaz-Fuentes, Daniel & Revuelta, Julio, 2009. "Explaining Telecoms and Electricity Internationalization in the European Union: A Political Economy Perspective," MPRA Paper 33037, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Christian Balcells, 2022. "Determinants of firm boundaries and organizational performance: an empirical investigation of the Chilean truck market," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 423-461, April.
    12. Francesca Carnevali, 2004. "‘Crooks, thieves, and receivers’: transaction costs in nineteenth‐century industrial Birmingham," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 57(3), pages 533-550, August.
    13. Curwen, Peter & Whalley, Jason, 2013. "Mapping worldwide mobile networks: Some problems and indicative solutions," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 1150-1165.
    14. Judith Clifton & Francisco Com�n & Daniel D�az-Fuentes, 2011. "From national monopoly to multinational corporation: How regulation shaped the road towards telecommunications internationalisation," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(5), pages 761-781, August.
    15. Troulos, Costas & Maglaris, Vasilis, 2011. "Factors determining municipal broadband strategies across Europe," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 842-856.
    16. Mike, Károly, 2015. "Kevesebb vagy több közgazdaságtant?. Valentiny Pál-Kiss Ferenc László-Nagy Csongor István (szerk.): Verseny és szabályozás, 2013. MTA KRTK KTI, Budapest, 2014, 372 o [More or less economics?. Pál V," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 335-340.
    17. Grove, Nico & Baumann, Oliver, 2012. "Complexity in the telecommunications industry: When integrating infrastructure and services backfires," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 40-50.
    18. Heikki Marjosola, 2021. "The problem of regulatory arbitrage: A transaction cost economics perspective," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 388-407, April.
    19. Haizhi Wang & Robert Wuebker & Shu Han & Michael Ensley, 2012. "Strategic alliances by venture capital backed firms: an empirical examination," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 179-196, February.
    20. Wehrheim, David & Dalay, Hakkı Doğan & Fosfuri, Andrea & Helmers, Christian, 2020. "How mixed ownership affects decision making in turbulent times: Evidence from the digital revolution in telecommunications," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:63:y:2009:i:1:p:24-41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.