Had a fascinating B812 tutorial today. Whilst attempting to form an opinion on the differences between Pluralism and Unitarism, guided by the direction provided by Dr Gill. I kept seeing the work of the late Alan Fox (an author who is undoubtedly a popularly cited authority in the field) on Pluralism.
An interesting read I found refers to a discussion that I would like to share. The e-book defines the term “Employment Relations” as possessing a context which internalises the conflict between institutional groups, (mainly managers and unions), which is typically considered distinct from the focus of what we refer to as “Human Resource Management (HRM)”. The latter is often viewed as a way of describing the critical perspectives on managerial business functions such as appraisal, recruitment, and interviewing.
So, as the title of the post alludes to the e-book introduces a term coined by Alan Fox referred to as “frames of reference”. We are then introduced to Pluralism in the following paragraphs. Fox’s 1966 paper: “A Note on Industrial-Relations Pluralism” is a good primer on this.
As a peer mediator in my school days, I was certainly intrigued by the practical balance that may be achieved through approaches founded on unitarism, but inherently I was drawn toward the middle ground. I reluctantly chose to fence sit. Somewhere between Fox's unitarian perspective and Fox's radical perspective.
Neo-pluralism.
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This post was written by Alfred Anate Mayaki, a student on the MSc in HRM, and was inspired by the work of Peter Ackers in an International Journal of Human Resource Management article entitled: “Neo-pluralism as a theoretical framework for understanding HRM in sub-Saharan Africa”.