29Th Annual International Labour Process Conference Leeds University Business School

29th Annual International Labour Process Conference Leeds University Business School, UK, 5th to 7th April 2011

Labour Process Analysis, Performativity and the Trade Unions: Towards an Action Research Agenda

Tony Huzzard (Department of Business Administration, Lund University, Sweden)

Hans Björkman (Unionen, Stockholm, Sweden)

Abstract

There is little or no tradition of action research outputs reaching the mainstream industrial relations and work sociology literatures. The aim of this paper is to address why this is so and argue for an action research agenda for work with unions that entails the researcher assuming the role of change agent to facilitate union capacity building or developing workplaces for better jobs. A key issue is how such an agenda can be advanced that does not compromise the integrity of the researcher or the quality of research output. This, we argue, is worth exploring as a means for putting union research on to a more interventionist footing. However, we also suggest that the successful pursuit of such an agenda depends on meeting a number of methodological challenges.

Keywords

Trade unions, industrial relations, action research, methodology

Introduction

Most mainstream research on unions to date has been dominated by traditional methodologies albeit from various perspectives and disciplines. For example, researchers have studied unions as systems in the sense of traditional systems theory (egCraig, 1975; Dunlop, 1958), as economic systems wherein focus has been on market exchange (eg Booth, 1995; Hicks, 1932) or bearers of transactions costs (eg Williamson, 1985), as institutions within wider industrial relations systems (egClegg, 1975; Flanders , 1970), as expressions of corporatism (eg; Crouch, 1982; Panitch, 1980; Schmitter, 1974), as political arenas (egEdelstein and Warner, 1979; Levin, 1980; Lipsey et al, 1956; Martin, 1968; Michels, 1915/1949; Undy et al 1981;Webb and Webb, 1902/1920;), as representatives of labour in the class struggle under capitalism (egFairbrother, 2000; Hyman, 1971; Kelly, 1996;) or as articulators of interests in a particular geo-political configuration (Hyman, 2001; Upchurch et al., 2009).

The work cited above overwhelmingly concerns an orientation entailing research on unions. More recently, a more normative orientation has been evident that can be understood as research for unions. In this approach they have been studied from a more managerial perspective that has foregrounded union effectiveness as organizations (Boxall and Haynes, 1997; Dempsey, 2004; Dunlop, 1990; Hannigan, 1998; Heery and Kelly, 1994; Huzzard, 2000; Reshef and Stratton-Devine, 1993; Scheck and Bolander, 1990; Undy et al, 1996; Willman et al, 1993). This development perhaps reflects a trend whereby the discourses of managerialism and business are now sufficiently hegemonic that they have also taken root in the organizations that exist to secure a greater share of the added value of business for labour. But much of this has been basic research that has sought to advance explanations and understandings on union practices, structures, strategies, outcomes and so on.

In contrast to the two orientations outlined above, a small number of researchers have sought to undertake research with unions (Björkman, 2005; Gregory, 1996; Holgate, 2005; Heery and Simms, 2010), notably through various action and collaborative methods. This approach has a normative ambition in that it seeks to advance knowledge in ways that are beneficial to them as organizations and to their members. But it also aims at intervening to develop practices and in so doing recasts the researcher role as that of a change agent. Here, union practitioners are not just objects of study but also co-producers of knowledge (Coghlan and Brannick, 2010; Greenwood and Levin, 2007). The action researcher, following both Levin and Marx, starts out from the basic position that it is not enough to understand the world, there is also a responsibility (in this case that of researchers) to change it. In this paper we argue in this spirit for greater attention to be paid to interventionist work such as action research, or to put it differently, for labour process scholarship to embrace more explicitly the action turn in social research.

The ambition to secure actual change to social and organizational phenomena is perhaps the key distinguishing characteristic that sets action research (AR) apart from more orthodox approaches to studying work organizations including unions (Reason and Bradbury, 2008). The role of the researcher in AR is not that of the detached observer doing research about the object of study. Neither is it that of taking a rather closer orientation producing knowledge at the behest of the object of study. Rather than researching about something or researching for someone, the action researcher is engaged in researching with them. This role includes that of being a change agent but this poses particular methodological demands. Action research ideally aims to secure two types of knowledge outcomes, namely a contribution to knowledge of a traditional scientific character for dissemination within the research community and secondly a contribution to practical knowledge in context or situated knowledge that underpins the intervention within the focal organization. The distinction here is that coined by Gibbons et al (2000) as that between mode 1 and mode 2 knowledge.

Despite offering a research tradition and wide application across the social sciences (Bradbury and Reason, 2008), AR has only had modest application in unions and IR settings (Huzzard and Gregory, 2008), but the incursions of this work into mainstream IR publications have been virtually non-existent. Such work has tended to confine itself to specialist journals (egDeutsch, 2005; Gregory, 1996; Moir, 2005), book chapters (egHuzzard and Gregory, 2008; Van Klaveren, 2004), PhD theses (egBjörkman, 2005; Lopes, 2005) or working papers. In focus here are either unions as organizations or relations at the workplace. Moreover, recent attempts to map the research field of industrial relations make no reference to AR (see egBlyton et al, 2008; Darlington, 2009; Kelly, 1998 ch 2). In some cases researchers have entered collaborative relationships, for example work in connection with union organizing in the UK (egHeery and Simms, 2010; Holgate, 2005). Yet this work has tended to focus on the mode 1 knowledge outcomes of the collaboration rather than the mode 2 knowledge associated with the intervention.

AR has thus not generally been seen as something of interest to the scholarly establishment either within industrial relations or the studies of the sociology of work more generally. This is equally notable in more critically inspired domains within these fields, notably labour process analysis and critical management studies (CMS). For example, a search for the keyword ‘Action Research’ in Work, Employment and Society in the article database of Lund University revealed no matches. Our point of department in this paper is that unions, in the post-crisis context are facing major challenges throughout Europe and beyond. This is not just in terms of the pursuit of better jobs and workplaces. It also entails activities to ensure the preservation of the jobs in question in the context of draconian public expenditure cuts and the knock-on effects of these on the broader economy. Put simply: are the unions up to the task? And what role might the research community now play in trade union capacity building?

What is action research?

Our answer to these two questions is for labour process and industrial relations scholars to embrace more readily AR methodologies that, rather than entail research on unions and/or industrial relations processes, focus on researching with them. But a discussion on the utilization of AR perspectives and methods calls for some definitions. What is action research and what is it not? Clearly the ‘action’ is not that of the unions per se but, rather, that of the intervention that aims to effect change or build union capacities. This entails the generation of two distinct types of knowledge: first that pertaining to the nature and process of the intervention, and second that of scientific output arising from the outcome of the intervention. As stated, an approach that encompasses both of these is rare in unions. But what are the differences, if any, between AR and collaborative research? Is action science the same as action research? What is clinical research? The format of a paper does allow us to enter a thorough discussion on these issues (but see egShani et al, 2004). However, a brief attempt to bring some clarity would, we feel, be helpful.

The rather broader term ‘Collaborative Research’ encompasses methodologies that can be defined as ‘an emergent and systematic inquiry process, embedded in an agreed upon partnership between actors with an interest in influencing a certain system of action and researchers interested in understanding and explaining such a system’ (Shani et al, 2007, p.13). This implies collaboration between participating organizations and researchers. The definition also implies that the results of the process should be organizational learning and change as well as better understanding. In other words, collaborative research should meet the criteria of organizational relevance and research rigour. This definition – broadly entailing the idea of researching with - does, it would seem, fit some work already being done with unions (see eg Wilson, 2009, for a summary of such work in the UK context). But it does not tell us anything specific about the collaboration during the research process. The more focused term ‘action research’ which we are arguing for here can be defined as one form of collaborative research that has a much stronger emphasis on both action and collaboration. Coghlan and Brannick (2010) use the following characteristics to define such a view of AR:

• research in action, rather than about action
• a collaborative democratic partnership
• research concurrent with action
• a sequence of events and an approach to problem solving.

Cooperrider and Srivastva (1987), however, have expressed misgivings about AR being reduced to problem-solving. In their approach of appreciative enquiry, they also see merit in a more ‘positive’ interventionist methodology that seeks to form agreement on good practice with a view to diffusing it. Our perspective is that any approach must have strong demands on practical relevance and scholarly rigour; moreover intervention goals should be underpinned by high levels of participation by union practitioners both in the change processes and the (co) production of knowledge. Hence, we support Coghlan and Brannick (2010; following Lippitt) in their most demanding definition of AR as being a procedure in which the participants are involved, together with the researchers, in all parts of the research process: collection of data of themselves, utilization of data, and developmental action.

Action research as a term is generic and can be used as a framework for a family of more specific concepts, such as participatory action research, action learning, appreciative enquiry, action science and clinical research. For us, then, to qualify as AR, the following criteria should be met:

• research rigour
• relevance for the client organization: learning, organizational development, problem solving or diffusing good practice
• research in/as action
• a strong participation from the client union, sometimes including employers, in all stages of the research/development process

It may be the case that some IR researchers are engaged to some extent with this work without using the term ‘action research’. Our contention, however, is that there is little or no published work arising from the mode 2 knowledge on the interventions in question, and that a more explicit bridging between the IR and AR communities would thereby be a fruitful endeavour.

The action research tradition

Why has the AR tradition largely passed labour process industrial relations scholarship by? To understand and explain this disconnect it is perhaps worthwhile reflecting briefly on the historical evolution of AR. The origins of AR are usually attributed to the works of Kurt Levin in the 1940s (Reason and Bradbury, 2001). Setting down an experimental and interventionist methodology, its basic ideas were subsequently picked up by socio-technical theorists at the Tavistock Institute in London and notably thereafter by Fred Emery and EinarThorsrud. Their work, in particular that of the latter, diffused the approach to an impressive number of workplace development programmes in Scandinavia in the 1960s and 1970s. Thorsrud believed that democratization of industrial relations had to be embedded in the structure of work organization and job content. This necessarily implied a key role for unions in a labour market that was comprehensively regulated by collective bargaining with the unions as key actors.

The key point of departure for much of this work was that socio-technical systems design could be used both for democratization and for organizational effectiveness (den Hertog and Schröder, 1989). For this reason it became quite natural to involve unions in the various AR programmes of the 1960s onwards at least in Scandinavia. Much of the early work focused on job redesign and the employment relationship that called for employee participation in change processes as well as to sensitivity towards solutions that foregrounded human needs in line with the then influential variants of motivation theory (Huzzard, 2003). A further manifestation of this was the emergence of the quality of working life (QWL) movement in the US and to some extent in Europe.

But the QWL movement, as with many other AR initiatives at the time, was conceived largely in terms of improving the instrumental conditions for the effectiveness of organizations, notably capitalist businesses. In the view of critics, the calls for greater participation, both in change processes and in their enduring solutions did not ultimately alter power relations. Many authors, for example those in the labour process tradition, sought research approaches that offered a more trenchant critique of industrial capitalism (see eg Ramsay, 1985). Change, where it occurred, was largely on management’s terms; even if managerial attitudes and behaviours were sometimes a legitimate and explicit target of change processes, managerial prerogative nonetheless prevailed. Accordingly, AR could be seen as located firmly within what had been labelled as the ‘sociology of regulation’ (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). This critique of the QWL movement and AR more generally is an important explanation, we believe, for the disconnect between AR methodology and industrial relations and sociology research practice, at least within the UK.

In Scandinavia, however, different institutional conditions prevailed. The social partners assumed a more corporatist stance, at least until the early 1990s, and governments funded a number of development programmes. Moreover, statutory co-determination procedures underpinned joint development efforts. Approaches drew on socio-technical principles, high levels of participation and a specific role for unions in AR processes. The approach in Norway has continued to the present day in the form of the Enterprise Development 2000 programme and its successor the Value Creation 2010 Programme. Much of the research effort has been undertaken at the Work Research Institute in Oslo with involvement from a wide range of unions and employers (Gustavsen et al, 1998; Gustavsen et al, 2001; Qvale, 2003). This work has created the inspiration for much action research with unions elsewhere around the globe, notably work in the US on occupational health and safety and work environment issues (Deutsch, 2005; Moir, 2005).

The endeavours of Thorsrud and colleagues also spread to Sweden. In the late 1980s the Swedish government levied a special work environment tax on firms in the first instance to rehabilitate sick employees, but the need to address related fields such as work organization was soon identified. The focus, however, switched from rehabilitation to productivity as Sweden entered recession in the 1990s. In all some 25,000 projects were financed from the fund generated by the tax (Gustavsen et al, 1996). At approximately the same time a further fund was set up to support workplace change initiatives - the Swedish Work Environment Fund. This facilitated working life research in various sectors of the Swedish economy and supported, amongst other initiatives, the Programme for Learning Organizations at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life which was backed by unions and employer organizations and comprised development projects at some 40 organizations in both private and public sectors.

Levin’s ideas and their adoption by researchers at Tavistock and others were clearly functionalist or at least were applied on functionalist assumptions, drawing inspiration, as stated, from socio-technical systems theory and perhaps even earlier ideas from the human relations tradition. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly the case that from the early days a heavy emphasis was placed on participation in change processes and thereby on research designs underpinning interventions. But the key question is whether critically oriented researchers should engage with a methodology that is explicitly instrumental, functionalist or, in terms preferred by writers within critical management studies, performative(Fournier and Grey, 2000; Spicer et al, 2009).

One response to this is to argue that all organizations including unions are sites of domination and that our critical gaze should not solely be focused on the practices of the capitalist firm or possibly the public sector bureaucracy – the task is to expose domination wherever it exists. This would preclude ‘research with’ unions from the AR approach. Alternatively, and this is the position we would support, we can draw on AR methodologies and the performative intent they presuppose as a means of working with organizations whose missions are to counter the reproduction of power relations under contemporary capitalism. These may be organizations that seek to alter gender relations, the relationship we have with the natural environment or the relations between capital and labour at the workplace. It is the latter of these we are of course focused on here, be it in terms of developing the unions’ own internal practices and processes or in terms of a union role in developing workplaces perhaps on some occasions in collaboration with employers.

Illustrations of action research in unions

Action research has the potential to be applied across the spectrum of union activities, strategies and orientations. Researchers have noted various strategic models, options or orientations for unions. Briefly we can categorise these as follows:

• Distributional unionism – traditional collective bargaining practices and the mobilisation of members around these
• Developmental unionism – practices aimed at developing workplaces and forms of work organization that entail an improved quality of working life. Broadly speaking such approaches require a degree of collaboration with managers
• Organizing unionism – practices that foreground the recruitment of new members and push for new recognition agreements with employers
• Servicing unionism – practices that seek to develop services to members that can perhaps be unrelated to the core activities of the union in relation to the (joint) regulation of the employment relationship
• Social movement unionism – practices that seek to reach out to broader social movements and align unions with such movements in order to advance common agendas in civil society

As stated, although industrial relations researchers, particularly in the UK, have generally eschewed action research, there have been notable exceptions. In the mid 1990s the Trade Union Research Unit at Ruskin College, Oxford, engaged in interventions focused on the union role in workplace change and its consequences. Gregory (1996), reporting on his work at the Ford Motor Company, 3M and Yorkshire Water with various unions, argued that much of the action research activity relied on the primacy of dialogue as a means of finding shared spaces in what was a plurality of interests and that, as a guiding principle, the issue in question should form the point of departure rather than theory. Typical activities undertaken by the action researcher included the formulation of an employee development programme (Ford), facilitating democratic dialogue to promote change (3M) and the formulation, with unions, of an alternative approach to corporate HRM strategy (Yorkshire Water). However, other examples of action research supporting developmental unionism in the UK are rare.