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The changing systems of British industrial relations, 1954-1979: Hugh Clegg and the Warwick sociological turn

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journal contribution
posted on 2014-06-25, 12:31 authored by Peter Ackers
With hindsight, the appointment of Richard Hyman to the Warwick Industrial Relations (IR) group marked a new direction for the academic field. The 1960s Oxford IR group had already begun to borrow from sociological research to better understand and reform the workplace. Alan Fox was emerging as a sociologist. However, it was only after Hugh Clegg had established the Warwick Industrial Relations Research Unit (IRRU) that workplace sociology became a fully indigenous part of British IR, illustrated by both Hyman's Marxist analysis and Eric Batstone's qualitative factory studies. This article charts the development of Oxford/Warwick social science through the shifting content of the three ‘System’ texts. IR pluralism proved unsuccessful as public policy reform, but Clegg's Warwick research programme fostered a theoretical and empirical engagement between pluralism and radical sociology that revitalized the field. Alongside Clegg's post-Donovan determination to study management, this new intellectual dynamic facilitated the 1980s emergence of a sceptical and empirical tradition of IR-shaped HRM in British business schools.

History

School

  • Business and Economics

Department

  • Business

Published in

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Volume

49

Issue

2

Pages

306 - 330 (25)

Citation

ACKERS, P., 2011. The changing systems of British industrial relations, 1954-1979: Hugh Clegg and the Warwick sociological turn. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 49 (2), pp. 306 - 330.

Publisher

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics

Version

  • SMUR (Submitted Manuscript Under Review)

Publication date

2011

Notes

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: ACKERS, P., 2011. The changing systems of British industrial relations, 1954-1979: Hugh Clegg and the Warwick sociological turn. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 49 (2), pp. 306 - 330, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2010.00844.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving

ISSN

0007-1080

Language

  • en

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