The author identifies the core principle that forms the theoretical and policy foundation for the field of industrial relations - that labor is embodied in human beings and is not a commodity - and argues that the field?s two central dependent variables are labor problems and the employment...

The authors compare and contrast two theoretical approaches to explaining a firm's choice of human resource management (HRM) practices - one from strategic human resource management (SHRM) and the other from economics. They present HRM frequency distributions depicting key empirical patterns...

The authors of this paper use the median voter model to predict the patterns of rank-and-file voting on wage concessions in a multiplant setting, then test those predictions using data from the 1982 GM-UAW negotiations. The model predicts that workers in plants with large layoffs will vote in...

The field of industrial relations in the United States is largely rooted in the early twentieth-century writings of John R. Commons and the Wisconsin School. The author documents and describes their strategy and recommended policy approach for improved industrial relations. The three core...

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of cyclical movements in strike activity. The first part of the paper develops a bargaining model that demonstrates the crucial role of limited information as a cause of strikes. This model is believed to be an improvement over others...

The author attempts to identify the essential characteristics that distinguish behavioral from nonbehavioral research in industrial relations. He argues that behavioral research is distinguished from nonbehavioral research by the psychological model of man that is contained in the theoretical...

This study aims to assess the recent debate that has emerged in the literature over the "economic" and "organizational-political" models of strikes and to propose and test a synthesis of those models as an explanation for the pattern of strike activity in the United States since 1900. The paper...

The author examines, critiques, and suggests modifications to the psychological assumptions of the rational choice model of the human agent that underlies much of the theoretical work in modern, neoclassical labor economics. He analyzes the rational choice model in terms of three psychological...

A searching interview with a scholar and industrial relations practitioner of whom the interviewer says, "If people in industrial relations were asked to name the single greatest living name in the field, [it is fair to say that] John Dunlop would win hands down." (Author's abstract.)

Debate among labor economists on the pros and cons of a minimum wage law has come to focus on whether labor markets are competitive or monopsonistic. Using principles and concepts of institutional economics, the author argues that this perspective on minimum wages is too narrow. In particular,...