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UGC NET Study Notes on Industrial Relations Approaches

By BYJU'S Exam Prep

Updated on: September 13th, 2023

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Industrial relations refer to the relations between management and workmen, union and management, unions and workmen in an industry. The decisions of the state will also have an impact on these relations.

  • It is mainly concerned with the manpower of an industry.
  • The industrial relations may be personal and informal or highly institutional with legally prescribed procedures.
  • The industrial relations system consists of the following four main parties:
  • Workers
  • Managements
  • Various organisations of workers and management
  • State

 UGC NET Study Notes on Industrial Relations Approaches

1) Dunlop’s approach: The analytical framework of industrial relations was presented by John T. Dunlop in his book Industrial Relations Systems.

  • This approach consists of three independent variables of the system. They are actors, contexts and ideology.
  • The actors in the system are a hierarchy of managers, a hierarchy of workers and specialized government agencies.
  • The contexts of the system are important aspects of the interacting environment of the actors. They are as follows:
  • Technological characteristics of the workplace and work community.
  • Market or budgetary constraints that affect the actors.
  • The locus and distribution of power.
  • The ideology refers to the philosophy of beliefs and sentiments held by various actors in the system. Every actor in the system will have their own ideology.

2) Oxford approach: This approach states that the system of industrial relations is the study of the institutions of the job regulations and stresses on the substantive and procedural rules.

  • Flanders, the exponent of this approach categorized the institution of job regulation into internal and external.
  • He considered collective bargaining as the central part of the industrial relations system.
  • The internal part consists of a code of work rules, wage structure, the internal procedure of joint consultation and grievance procedure.
  • The external part includes trade unions.
  • The approach is represented in the following equation:

                          r = f(b) or r = f(c)

Where r refers to the rules governing industrial relations.

           b refers to collective bargaining.

           c refers to the conflict resolved through collective bargaining.

3) The Industrial Sociology Approach: This approach consists of two conceptual levels of industrial relations. They are intra-plant level and outside the firm conflicts.

  • At the intra-plant level, factors such as job content, work task and technology, and interaction produce three types of conflicts. The conflicts and their resolving methods are as follows:
  • Distributive conflicts can be resolved by collective bargaining.
  • Structural conflicts can be resolved by structural analysis of socio-technical systems.
  • Human relations conflicts can be resolved through man-management analysis.
  • Outside the firm conflicts are those that are not resolved at the intra-organisational level.

4) The action theory approach: This approach mainly focuses on bargaining to resolve various conflicts.

  • In this approach, the actors operate within a framework and to resolve the conflict, they agree in principle to cooperate.

5) The Marxist approach: This approach focuses on the power struggle or power relationship between capital and labour.

  • It takes various decisions taken by these classes into consideration in strengthening their overall position.
  • In this, capital ownership tries to pay the lowest possible wages to the workers to maximize their profits.

6) The Pluralist approach: In this approach, the main focus will be on the resolution of the conflict or on the institutions of job regulation.

  • Kerr, one of the exponents of pluralism stated that the social environment is an important factor in industrial conflicts.
  • Flanders stated that the conflict is inherent in the industrial system and suggested collective bargaining as a method of conflict resolution.
  • Arthur Ross argued that an organization should be viewed as a “plural society containing many related but separate interests and objectives which must be maintained in some kind of equilibrium.”
  • Fox stated two distinct aspects of the workers and management relationship. They are as follows:
  • Market relationship: It deals with the terms and conditions on which labour is hired.
  • Management’s dealing with labour: It includes interactions, negotiations, distribution of powers and union’s participation in joint decision-making.

7) Weber’s Social Action Approach: This approach mainly focuses on the control and the power struggle of all the actors to control work organizations. This approach mainly deals with the following:

  • To analyze the impact of changes in techno-economic and politico-organisational aspects on the structure and processes of the trade union.
  • To analyze the subjective interpretation of the approaches of the workers to trade unionism.
  • To analyse the powers of employers, trade unions, government and political parties.

8) The Human Relations Approach: To control the environment, this approach encourages small workgroups. This approach mainly focuses on communication, management development, group dynamics and participation in management.

  • This approach neglected the role of technology and culture in the industry.

9) Gandhian Approach: Gandhiji said that the strikes should be the last weapon for the industrial workers and they should make use of the constitutional methods such as negotiations, conciliation and arbitration.

  • He said that the owners of the mills and factories should regard themselves only as trustees or co-owners.
  • He also appealed to the workers that they should not regard the mill and machinery as belonging to exploiting agents.
  • Gandhiji supported voluntary arbitration and mutual settlement of disputes.

10) Human Resource Management Approach: This approach supports individualism and the direct relationship between management and its employees. Some of the important components of human resource management are as follows:

  • Human resource planning, human resource development, human resource systems, human resource accounting and human resource audit.

11) Craig’s model: Craig developed the input-output model of the industrial relations system. The main components of this model are as follows:

  • The inputs or the goals and the values and power of the actors.
  • The mechanism for converting inputs into outputs.
  • The outputs of the system (Financial, psychological and social rewards).

Summary

  • The Industrial relations system is mainly concerned with the manpower of an industry.
  • Dunlop’s approach consists of three independent variables of the system. They are actors, contexts and ideology.
  • According to the Oxford approach, the system of industrial relations is the study of the institutions of the job regulations.
  • The Marxist approach focuses on the power struggle or power relationship between capital and labour.
  • Weber’s social action approach mainly focuses on the control and the power struggle of all the actors in controlling work organizations.
  • The human relations approach encourages small workgroups.
  • In the action theory approach, actors operate within a framework and to resolve the conflict, they agree in principle to cooperate.
  • Craig developed the input-output model of the industrial relations system.

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