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The purpose of this paper is to advance a conceptualization of sustainable HRM that builds on scholarship focusing on the pluralistic nature of human resource management. The paper seeks to advance the promise of sustainable HRM as an alternative to HRM scholarship that adopts a unitarist frame of reference.

The paper draws on a variety of HRM-related literatures to offer new insights about what a pluralist perspective on sustainable HRM from the perspective of employees would look like and what it would accomplish, and in so doing allow sustainable HRM to become socially sustainable.

Taking a pluralistic perspective is essential for making the concept of sustainable HRM more distinct and robust. Sustainable HRM can offer a challenge to the dominant unitarist perspective on the employment relationship, focusing the attention of researchers on the extent to which employment practices benefit both employers and employees while contributing to social sustainability outside of the employment context.

This paper adds analyses of pluralism and unitarism to the current literature on sustainable HRM while also focusing attention on how sustainable HRM might be more robustly conceptualized and also more normative in its orientation.

In recent years it has become clear that joint consultation has not withered away in British industry but has managed to maintain a considerable institutional presence. The precise character of consultation in these companies is rather more difficult to determine. Drawing on research in a Japanese‐owned electronics factory, with elaborate machinery for participation as well as a single union, no‐strike deal, it is concluded that consultation is little more than a symbol of unitarism. Moreover, other unitarist symbols are also used to convey the “family” message to the workforce.

The 1986 Green Paper on Profit‐related Pay (PRP) saw the initiative as contributing to the elimination of the “them and us mentality” from British industry. Considers the impact of PRP and shows the Green Paper’s view to be optimistic. This conclusion derives from an examination of the PRP scheme and its context within government policies on taxation, employment, industrial democracy and industrial relations. These are shown to be exacerbating the inequalities of reward and power out of which the categories “them and us” are structured. Given this, it is difficult to see PRP promoting industrial unitarism.

There can be little doubt that the risk and fluctuation of demand taken on by employers has been increasingly passed onto employees. We are witnessing a fragmented contract of rules largely determined by employers, for employers. Here the conventional form of employment relations is non-unionism and the management of employees through Human Resource Management (HRM). This chapter critically reviews the underlying assumptions underpinning the rise of HRM, not least its unitarist undercurrent, narrow emphasis on performance and limited incorporation of multiple stakeholders. The chapter then uses Amazon as an exemplary case to illuminate these dynamics in practice and to offer a critical review of what constitutes a meaningful and successful organisation in this new era of work. The chapter concludes by detailing prospects for redress and institutional experimentation, including via technological platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the appearance of cyberloafing at work, that is, the use of the company’s internet connection for personal purposes, may be due to a workplace that lacks mindfulness and compassion. The authors first hypothesize that supervisors’ mindfulness is related to the mindfulness of their direct followers, and that both are related to employees’ compassion at work. The authors also hypothesize that compassion mediates the link between supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness and cyberloafing, and that empathic concern mediates the link from compassion to cyberloafing.

A questionnaire was distributed to followers working in groups of three with the same leader in all of the 100 banks in London (UK). Supervisors and their direct reports (n=100) and 100 triads of followers (n=300) participated. The authors applied structural equation modeling (SEM) for analyses.

Results showed that supervisors’ and followers’ mindfulness were significantly related to each other and to compassion at work, but compassion acted as a mediator only in the case of supervisors’ mindfulness. Empathic concern mediated the compassion-cyberloafing link.

The study could suffer from mono-method/source bias and specificities of banks and their work processes can raise concerns about the generalizability of the results.

Findings suggest that mindfulness training may facilitate compassion at work, which, in turn, will restrain the occurrence of cyberloafing at work.

This is the first study to analyze how and why employees refrain from harming their organizations out of compassion.

The purpose of this paper is to explore management development in five trade unions. It investigates senior trade union managers' interpretations of management development, in particular, the extent to which they view management development as relevant to trade unions. The article also explores the link between managers' interpretations and the external environment for trade union activity. It considers the potential discord between the unitarist values and assumptions that arguably frame much management development literature and the democratic and pluralist values of trade unionism.

This research takes an interpretive qualitative approach. In‐depth interviews with nine key “elite” individuals representing five trade unions were carried out, in order to elicit their subjective interpretations of management development.

Trade union managers view management development as necessary in the context of environmental uncertainty. Moreover, although management development in trade unions retains some unitarist assumptions, it is also linked to core trade union values of fairness and justice.

The in‐depth qualitative interview design allows for exploration of management development activities in a small number of unions and from a management perspective. Further research is needed to explore the issues in a wider context.

The paper begins to highlight and theorise management development in trade unions.

The article has implications in relation to the role of trade unions as employers.

The article explores and theorises management development in relation to trade union management practices. It explores trade union education from the management development perspective rather than from an industrial relations or political education paradigm.

This study investigates the origins and elaboration of the managerial “unitary” frame of reference associated with Alan Fox, focusing on unionised firms: the industrial relations context, intellectual roots, elaboration, adaptation by other writers, and international applicability.

Tracing the above requirements through contemporaneous sources.

Fox’s designation of the unitary frame needs to be understood in its 1960s’ context, particularly the promotion of “productivity bargaining”, and its furthering through management training and education. Fox’s specific contribution is identified. Subsequent UK writers have underplayed the importance of the legal dimension of managerial authority, especially relevant in the US context, while other extra-economic factors bolster the managerial unitary frame in authoritarian societies such as China.

The use of Fox's neglected 1960s’ writings; tracking how Fox developed the unitary frame concept and how it was funnelled into the narrow parameters of non-unionism by subsequent writers; identifying its applicability beyond the UK (with the USA as a historical example and China as a contemporary one).

The purpose of this paper is to discuss why and how the notion of sustainability has been integrated to the practices of HRM in Chile. Especially, it examines how the union‒management relationship shapes and is shaped by the adoption of a sustainable approach. By doing so, it contributes to a broader debate about HRM in Latin America.

The paper draws on a case study conducted between 2016 and 2018 in two large companies. In each of these companies, besides the analysis of internal and administrative documentation, human resource managers, line managers and union officers were interviewed.

In this paper, two main findings are discussed. First, the sustainable HRM idea installed in Chile has not involved a total renunciation of some old ideological frames, but rather an adjustment of these. The old paternalist managerialism is shaping a path to a new HRM model, willing to yield part of its control to workers, but not less unitarist in its foundations. Second, the sustainable HRM concept adoption by the studied companies is not primarily motivated by economic goals as it may have occurred in other contexts, but by the need of a solution to labour conflicts in a context of union action renewal.

This research could be used to teach about leadership, strategy and sustainability, highlighting the importance of understanding the contested nature of the employment relations within these processes of changing. To accomplish this, HR practitioners need to get more involved with pluralistic perspectives in labour relations and thus achieve effective sustainable practices in the workplace. It is also relevant that unions recognise and strengthen their ability to influence these policies.

This paper sheds lights on how the concept of sustainable HRM has been introduced in Latin America, which has been slightly discussed in mainstream scientific literature. It also provides empirical evidence about unexplored and recent changes in HRM and proposes new perspectives for the study of this topic in the region, considering variables as the managerial ideologies, current labour disputes and the relevance of trade union voice.

This study aims to hypothesize that the more in-house staff perceive themselves as beneficiaries of the procedural justice (PJ) followed in the outsourcing, or perceive their outsourced peers as recipients of distributive (DJ) and interactional justice (IJ), the more they will show acceptance and positive evaluations of the outsourcing initiatives. Although prior research in the hospitality industry has extensively studied individual-level reactions to organizational justice, no study has been undertaken to examine how hotel staff support and value outsourcing initiatives based on the way they perceive management’s treatment of them and their peers.

Questionnaire data from 215 in-house employees working side-by-side with outsourced employees at 14 hotels in Gran Canaria (Spain) were analyzed by using structural equation modeling.

The results found that in-house employees who perceived themselves or their outsourced peers as recipients of organizational justice to a greater extent reported greater support for outsourcing by expressing higher levels of acceptance and better evaluations. The results also supported procedural justice (PJ) as playing a dominant role over distributive (DJ) and interactional justice (IJ).

The findings suggest that by encouraging justice perceptions among in-house employees, mainly those related to properly discussing the outsourcing procedures with affected employees, hotel managers can promote successful outsourcing. Given that in-house employees reacted not only to the way they were treated by hotel management but also to the way their outsourced peers were treated, the findings also indicate that all (un)fair treatment in outsourcing, regardless of the recipient, should receive explicit attention by hotel managers.

This paper is one of the first to primarily focus on the individual level of analysis in examining and supporting organizational justice in hotel firms as a factor influencing outsourcing success.

The article explains why some Chilean companies have implemented a partnership strategy with trade unions, in a national context broadly described as unfavorable to such approach. Moreover, it discusses the shape and limits of this strategy.

The argument draws on a case study conducted between 2016 and 2018 in three large companies. Human resources managers, line managers and union officers were interviewed in each of these companies, and internal and administrative documentation were analyzed.

The article demonstrates that the management’s partnership strategy in the studied companies has emerged to contain the union revitalization. Additionally, it suggests this strategy has not favored trust-based relationships that guarantee long-term mutual gains for employees and companies. The article identifies some factors that explain this situation: the regulation, the economic uncertainty and the absence of a pluralist management perspective.

The article has the value of providing empirical evidence on union–management partnership, a topic that has gained strategic importance for large Chilean companies but remains unexplored in the mainstream the human resources management literature. The article also contributes to underscore the theoretical relevance of political and cultural variables in explaining management strategies and their results.

El artículo explica por qué surge una política de colaboración empresa-sindicato en un contexto como el chileno, ampliamente descrito como desfavorable a este tipo de enfoque. Asimismo, discute la forma en que se instala esta política y los obstáculos para su desarrollo.

El argumento se basa en un estudio de casos conducido entre el 2016 years el 2018 en tres grandes empresas. En cada una de ellas, se entrevistó a representantes de la dirección y dirigentes sindicales; se revisó documentación interna y administrativa.

El artículo demuestra que la política de colaboración implementada por la dirección en las empresas estudiadas surge para contener la revitalización sindical. Asimismo, sugiere que esta política no ha favorecido en todos los casos relaciones de confianza que garanticen ganancias mutuas para los trabajadores y las empresas a largo plazo. Identifica algunos factores que explican esta situación: la regulación, la incertidumbre económica y la ausencia de un compromiso gerencial con una perspectiva pluralista.

El artículo tiene el valor de proveer evidencia empírica respecto de la colaboración empresa-sindicato, un tema que ha ganado importancia estratégica para las grandes empresas chilenas y que, sin embargo, sigue siendo desatendido por la literatura de GRH. El artículo también contribuye a subrayar la relevancia teórica de las variables políticas y culturales en la explicación de las estrategias gerenciales y sus resultados.