Industrial Relations and Social Change: the Neo-Industrialist Perspective

Abstract

A recent theme of industrial relations research is to mould a new model of ‘industrial relations systems’ and to relate this to overall social change which is caused by drastic changes of existing systems. In these attempts pluralism as a model of industrial relations and industrialism as a perspective of social change have been criticized.
In contrast, this paper tries to offer a so-called neo-industrialist perspective. Neo-industrialism, which is endorsed by the revision of social change theory through the rise of world-system theory and articulation theory, offers the long-term convergence of industrial relations on an abstract theoretical level.