Bookshelf

Book Review: Voice and Involvement at Work: Experience with Non-Union Representation

December 14, 2015 1546

Voice and Involvement at Work Book Cover

Voice and Involvement at Work: Experience with Non-Union Representation. Edited by Paul J. Gollan, Bruce E. Kaufman, Daphne Taras, Adrian Wilkinson . New York and Oxford: Routledge, 2015. 420 pp. ISBN 978-0-415-53721-6, $135 (Cloth).

Rafael Gomez of University of Toronto recently took the time to review the book in the October Issue of ILR Review, which you can find here. From the review:

The editors spend a considerable amount of time in the introductory chapter not just laying out the structure of the book and offering a redacted synopsis for the time-constrained reviewer, but in really fleshing out where NER [non-union employee representation] sits in relation to the human resource management (HRM), economics, and industrial relations literatures. This chapter also offers arguably one of the strongest defenses of why we should be interested in NER and for abandoning many preconceived notions of what NER does. For too long, as the editors note, employee representation schemes that were either mandated (much work has existed on the rise of statutory works councils, for example) or set up by an employer were deemed to be of second order significance and/or lacked legitimacy in some quarters of the IR discipline. Likewise in the HRM literature, an ILR_72ppiRGB_powerpointoverriding concern was on the bottom-line impact of such schemes and how they linked up to the broader high-performance paradigm. The editors quite rightly point to the real intrinsic value of providing voice to workers (free from any associated efficiency benefits) and how workplaces should still be viewed, by implication, as the crucibles of industrial democracy. The other perspective of course that is given short shrift by the editors is the view held among many traditional labor studies scholars that NER is everywhere and always a trade union substitute. This is indeed one of the motives behind some employer NER designs—the editors acknowledge as much—but equal precedence can be found for seeing NER systems as platforms for employee engagement and eventual trade union representation.

You can read the rest of the review from ILR Review for free for the next two weeks by clicking here. Like what you read? Click here to sign up for e-alerts and have all the latest research and reviews like this sent directly to your inbox!

Business and Management INK puts the spotlight on research published in our more than 100 management and business journals. We feature an inside view of the research that’s being published in top-tier SAGE journals by the authors themselves.

View all posts by Business & Management INK

Related Articles

Why Men Have a Bigger Carbon Footprint Than Women  
Insights
July 8, 2025

Why Men Have a Bigger Carbon Footprint Than Women  

Read Now
Closing the Gender Pay Gap: Why Intermediaries Matter
Business and Management INK
June 18, 2025

Closing the Gender Pay Gap: Why Intermediaries Matter

Read Now
Who Gets to Flourish? 
Public Policy
June 5, 2025

Who Gets to Flourish? 

Read Now
Pope Francis, Human Dignity, and the Right to Stay, Migrate and Return
International Debate
May 5, 2025

Pope Francis, Human Dignity, and the Right to Stay, Migrate and Return

Read Now
Banning Social Media Won’t Solve Teen Misogyny

Banning Social Media Won’t Solve Teen Misogyny

In this month’s issue of The Evidence newsletter, Josephine Lethbridge discusses the rise of teen misogyny, highlighting the impact of online men’s […]

Read Now
From Isolation to Impact: Tackling the Emotional Toll of Ethnographic Research in Business and Society

From Isolation to Impact: Tackling the Emotional Toll of Ethnographic Research in Business and Society

In this article, Lorenzo Skade discusses the emotional difficulties encountered by early-career researchers involved in ethnographic studies within the business and society […]

Read Now
“Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost.” –Nintendo “Quit Screen” Message

“Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost.” –Nintendo “Quit Screen” Message

In this post, authors Richard F.J. Haans and Marc J. Mertens reflect on the inspiration behind their research article, “The Internet Never […]

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments