Summary

Part 2 of this first (busy) week has introduced additional concepts that help us to explain patterns of employment relations and understand why they vary. In particular, we have noted the importance of history as an explanatory ‘contextual’ variable. We have also introduced ‘Values’ in ER and noted how each ‘value’ emphasises different aspects of the employment relationship. We discussed how our values, or our ‘frames of reference’, have an important influence on how we see the world, what we believe to be interesting, or important, or right. Thus, values help us to understand the nature of the employment relationship because we can better understand how the decisions and actions of the parties to the employment relationship are shaped.

This has been a BIG week; please take the time to make sure you have grasped all the concepts. Please utilise the discussion board to make comments or raise issues about any aspects of the topics covered so far on which you may not be totally clear.

Next week we move on to consider the Four Topics, which will inform the analysis across our five countries.