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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between unions, employee relations and the adoption of high performance work practices (HPWP). Design/methodology/approach – This study uses survey data collected from the senior members of the human resource management (HRM) function in 189 large Australian organisations. Findings – It was found that unions, when coupled with good employee relations, facilitate the adoption of HPWP and consequently have a positive impact on organisational competitiveness, contradicting the simplistic notion that unions are “bad for business”. Research limitations/implications – This study used cross‐sectional survey data from HRM managers, who while being the best single source of information, may have distorted their responses. Further research is required to confirm these results using several data sources collected from a larger sample over more than one time period. Practical implications – This research has implications for Government and organisation approaches to union presence and management in organisations. Social implications – This research contributes to HRM and organisational competitiveness, which has implications for GDP. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the debate on whether the individual and direct voice provided by HPWP is a substitute for union collective voice, with the associated implication that unions are unnecessary and even destructive to organisation competitive advantage.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Discussions about the position of British trade unions under Thatcherism continue to interest scholars and practitioners in the UK, and a variety of theories have been put forward which suggest that unions are becoming increasingly marginal to workplace employee relations. Three of these are focused on, namely, the roll‐back of union organisation, the separation of collective bargaining from strategic decision making, and the impact of employee involvement on union activity. These ideas are evaluated against data from a longitudinal study of four multi‐plant private sector organisations, each of which has high levels of union density and some forms of employee involvement. The data, which were collected in the late 1980s, suggest that simple monocausal correlations – such as employee involvement is directly undermining trade unions – are not robust enough to cope with the reality of organisational life. Much more credence needs to be given to the environmental and more broader managerial context within which employee relations takes place.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between managerialist employment relations and employee turnover intention in Nigeria. The study context is public hospitals in Nigeria, which have a history of problematic human resource management (HRM) practice, a non-participatory workplace culture, managerialist employment relations and a high employee turnover intention.

Based on a qualitative, interpretive approach, this paper investigates the process by which Nigerian employment relations practices trigger the employee turnover intention of doctors using 33 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in public hospitals.

This study found that Nigeria’s managerialist employment relations trigger the employee turnover intention of medical doctors. Additionally, it was found that although managerialist employment relations lead to turnover intention, Nigeria’s unique, non-participatory and authoritarian employment relations system exacerbates this situation, forcing doctors to consider leaving their employment.

Studies on the interface between managerialism and employment relations are still under-researched and underdeveloped. This paper also throws more light on issues associated with managerialist employment relations and human resources practice including stress, burnout and dissatisfaction. Their relationship with doctors’ turnover intention has significant implications for employment policies, engagement processes and HRM in general. The possibility of generalising the findings of this study is constrained by the limited sample size and its qualitative orientation.

This paper contributes to the dearth of studies emphasising employer–employee relationship quality as a predictor of employee turnover intention and a mediator between managerialist organisational system and turnover intention. The study further contributes to the discourse of employment relations and its concomitant turnover intention from developing countries’ perspective within the medical sector.

Since the late 1970s, the study of the role, structure and functions of personnel management in the United Kingdom has been greatly facilitated by surveys emerging from a number of large‐scale surveys. A major interest in interpreting the data from these surveys has been to evaluate the impact of recession, and, latterly, recovery on the power, structure and roles of personnel departments and personnel specialists in recent years. The survey data are used comparatively to evaluate the empirical plausibility of the different scenarios which have arisen, and to account for the results that emerge.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss significant changes in the concept and practice of employment relations over the last 50 years. It does so from both public policy and management perspectives and highlights the continued failure to align these two perspectives.

The paper draws on the author’s research as an adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and his previous experience as a civil servant in the Employment Department. A range of published sources are relied on, including quantitative, survey based and qualitative, case-study and other evidence.

The over-riding need to tackle inflation led governments in the 1960s and 1970s to make repeated attempts to build a stronger legal framework around collective bargaining, and to intensifying incomes policies which brought governments into frequent conflict with the trade unions. This was followed by incremental reform of trade union legislation under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, to which there has subsequently been no serious challenge. The question is posed whether the author is nearing the end of the road for trade union voice in the UK, or whether there is scope for a “new deal” under which trade unions can join with other key stakeholders in making a positive contribution towards economic regeneration. Looking forward, the paper discusses shifts in trade union approaches to industrial action and major challenges for employers, including managing individual conflict and employee voice.

The paper suggests that the ambiguity of the term “employee relations” means the author needs to ask what are the specific challenges facing employee relations practitioners today. Employee relations managers are undertaking a wide range of jobs. Their current focus on employee relations reflects a shift from the defensive attitudes that characterised the earlier part of the period to a more positive one. The paper concludes by arguing the case for a national forum bringing together employers, trade unions and other key stakeholders to advise government on workplace issues.

This paper considers the impact of collectivist and individualist management styles in employee relations on levels of strategic integration in employee relations. The findings indicate a positive relationship between individualism and strategic integration. The findings further indicate that high levels of strategic integration are associated with low levels of collectivism in employee relations. Ownership was the most significant factor impacting upon variations in levels of strategic integration.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of Employee Relations is split into seven sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Design of Work; Performance, Productivity and Motivation; Patterns of Work; Pay, Incentives and Pensions; Career/Manpower Planning ; Industrial Relations and Participation; Health and Safety.

The aim of this research is to study the relationships between occupational commitment, industrial relations and turnover intention, as well as the moderating role of turnover intention.

Empirical data for this study were collected using a questionnaire survey method. A total of 600 copies of the questionnaire were sent out by post or email to firms and 429 valid responses were finally obtained, yielding a response rate of approximately 71.5 per cent.

Except for the limited choices commitment, affective commitment, normative commitment and cumulative costs commitment are found to be significantly and positively related to industrial relations. Employees’ turnover intention may be detrimental to industrial relations, as our results show that it has a negative correlation with industrial relations. We also find that it negatively moderates the relationship between occupational commitment and industrial relations.

Our results shed light on human resource management practices in Chinese firms, and managerial implications are made to enhance Chinese employees’ occupational commitment.

This study extends the current literature and provides new insights into the relationship between the four dimensions of occupational commitment and industrial relations in the Chinese context. It also provides an understanding that this relationship is conditioned on employees’ turnover intention.

The purpose of this paper is to offer empirical evidence on whether and how the work experiences of employees in China influence their union-related attitudes and behaviours.

The authors developed a mediated moderation model to examine how job satisfaction and labour relations climate interactively affect union participation and whether union commitment mediates the interactive effects. A total of 585 employees from enterprises in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian province of China were surveyed to verify the model.

Job satisfaction was negatively related to union participation and union commitment. Labour relations climate moderated the relationship between job satisfaction and union participation; the relationship was negative and stronger when employees perceived an adverse, rather than a favourable, labour relations climate. Further, the interactive effect of job satisfaction and labour relations climate on union participation was partly mediated by union commitment.

By empirically examining employees’ attitudes and behaviours towards unions in the Chinese context, this study confirms that unions could provide employees with alternative work resources to cope with job dissatisfaction, even in a country where unions play a “transmission belt” role between employees and employers. This study adds value to the existing base of knowledge on union practice and labour relations construction, both inside and outside of China.