Concise Introduction to Employment Relations

Hardback

Concise Introduction to Employment Relations

9781802207477 Edward Elgar Publishing
Richard Hyman, Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, UK
Publication Date: February 2025 ISBN: 978 1 80220 747 7 Extent: c 144 pp
This Concise Introduction illuminates the conflict, cooperation and complex issues surrounding employment relations. Richard Hyman, a leading expert in the field, clearly explains how the reality of employment interactions and the academic understanding of the subject have been transformed by globalisation, neoliberalism and financialisation.

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Critical Acclaim
Contents
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This Concise Introduction illuminates the conflict, cooperation and complex issues surrounding employment relations. Richard Hyman, a leading expert in the field, clearly explains how the reality of employment interactions and the academic understanding of the subject have been transformed by globalisation, neoliberalism and financialisation.

Key Features:
• Focuses on those involved in the governance of labour, from employers to trade unions
• Synthesises several decades of research to help the reader understand the growth of precarious work
• Critically discusses contemporary challenges, including the aftereffects of COVID-19 and the climate crisis

The Concise Introduction to Employment Relations is beneficial to students focusing on human resources, industrial relations, economics and employment studies. Those studying sociology and organisational behaviour will also find it valuable.
Critical Acclaim
‘”Industrial relations is so 1970s”, we often hear. The author who revolutionised the study of industrial relations in the 1970s comes back with this irresistible, eye-opening book about how exactly the changing, often unsettling nature of employment requires, today more than ever, a critical, engaged, encompassing approach in order to see through the myths, from management, politics and media alike, that obfuscate the social reality of working lives.’
– Guglielmo Meardi, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy

‘A masterful introduction to the past, present, and future of employment relations. Richard Hyman has expertly condensed an encyclopedia’s worth of detail within a careful comparative and historical analysis. The result is an incisive look at continuity and change within a field he has played a central role in shaping.’
– Virginia Doellgast, Cornell University, USA

‘A stimulating and provocative book reflecting on changes in employment relations and the disruptive effects of global conflicts. Essential reading for employment relations academics and students.’
– Adrian Wilkinson, Griffith University, Australia

‘This book is timely, readable and provocative. Richard Hyman focusses in an idiosyncratic and opinionated way on themes that are interesting and important. All students of employment or industrial relations, human resources and work organisation would benefit from reading it.’
– Greg J. Bamber, Monash University, Australia
Contents
Contents
Preface
1 Introduction: what’s in a name?
2 Work and employment: arguments and ambiguities
3 Labour as a collective actor
4 Actors and processes: the complex role of the state
5 Varieties of employment regimes: from local to global?
6 The rise of the precariat?
7 The future(s) of employment relations in times of plague, war and ecological disaster
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