A key to raising productivity may be to stimulate product market competition, and this will need a complementary policy of relatively low unit labour costs — best achieved through managers developing their social skills, abilities, knowledge and understanding of how the labour market works....

This article draws from “institutional” labour economics and mainstream industrial relations, but differs from the more usual uses of their ideas in a number of ways. For example, the observation we make, that wages and prices are “sticky” downwards and that labour markets respond to...

It appears that the role of money as a motivator in work tasks has increased substantially during the past decade. This applies particularly to managerial and executive grades. First, why this might be the case is discussed. Second, the literature on the early research into the pay of the chief...

Since 1970 the British industrial relations system has been injected with an unprecedented volume of law relating to employment. We have had the Equal Pay Act, 1970 and Sex Discrimination Act, 1975 which have spawned an Equal Opportunities Commission; the Industrial Relations Act, 1971 was...

Industrial relations can be said to be concerned with who makes the rules relating to employment matters, what rules will exist and how any adjustments to such rules will be made. In a large number of industrial relations systems the process of adjustment is by collective bargaining, and most...

"How did England, once a minor regional power, become a global hegemon between 1689 and 1815? Why, over the same period, did she become the world's first industrial nation? Gary W. Cox addresses these questions in Marketing Sovereign Promises. The book examines two central issues: the origins of...