IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v1y1987i3p281-308.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Uncertainties of Management in the Management of Uncertainty: Employers, Labor Relations and Industrial Adjustment in the 1980s

Author

Listed:
  • Wolfgang Streeck

    (IIMV Platz der Luftbrücke 1808 BERLIN 62)

Abstract

In the course of economic crisis, the initiative in industrial relations shifts to employers. This paper does not present employers' recent industrial relations initiatives in detail, but rather tries to reconstruct the general strategic problem to which they are responding. This problem is to find ways of managing an unprecedented degree of economic uncertainty deriving from a need for continuous rapid adjustment to a market environment that seems to have become permanently more turbulent than in the past. This requires an increasingly close (re-)integration of industrial relations and industrial strategy in the context of a comprehensive manufacturing policy. Institutional barriers which insulate industrial relations from concerns for, and changes in, economic performance need to be dismantled, and `flexibility' is a key concept. However, the management of uncertainty remains incomplete and beset with contradictions due to profound uncertainties of management regarding the structure and function of a flexible industrial relations system. These uncertainties are linked to wider problems of industrial strategy whose resolution partly depends on the strategic decisions of other actors, in particular trade unions.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolfgang Streeck, 1987. "The Uncertainties of Management in the Management of Uncertainty: Employers, Labor Relations and Industrial Adjustment in the 1980s," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 1(3), pages 281-308, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:1:y:1987:i:3:p:281-308
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017087001003002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017087001003002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017087001003002?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. Marsden, David, 1981. "Collective bargaining and positive adjustment policies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20658, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    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. Hollingsworth, J. Rogers, 1990. "The Governance of American Manufacturing Sectors: The Logic of Coordination and Control," MPIfG Discussion Paper 90/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Jill RUBERY & Damian GRIMSHAW, 2001. "ICTs and employment: The problem of job quality," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 140(2), pages 165-192, June.
    3. Ashwin, Sarah & Oka, Chikako & Schüßler, Elke & Alexander, Rachel & Lohmeyer, Nora, 2020. "Spillover effects across transnational industrial relations agreements: the potential and limits of collective action in global supply chains," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100997, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Alessandro Arrighetti & Eleonora Bartoloni & Fabio Landini & Chiara Pollio, 2019. "Exuberant Proclivity Towards Non-Standard Employment:Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data," Working Papers 1905, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Department of Economics, Society & Politics - Scientific Committee - L. Stefanini & G. Travaglini, revised 2019.
    5. Ruth V. Aguilera & Igor Filatotchev & Howard Gospel & Gregory Jackson, 2008. "An Organizational Approach to Comparative Corporate Governance: Costs, Contingencies, and Complementarities," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(3), pages 475-492, June.

    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.

      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:woemps:v:1:y:1987:i:3:p:281-308. 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.britsoc.co.uk/ .

      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.