Regulating the internal labour market

1
Regulating the internal labour market

• The contribution of HR practices to fairness at
  work

2
Research background

• Organisations are the locus of employment
  outcomes
• Job tenure still relatively long
• Open-ended employment relationship still dominant
  contractual form
• Employer strategy is central to shaping decisions
  regarding pay, job design, etc.
• Internal labour markets provide a useful
  framework for analysing the interplay of rules,
  norms, power and custom within the organisation
• describes the rules for hiring, job ladders, pay,
  working time and training
• with roots in industrial relations/economics, has
  emerged as a valuable interdisciplinary approach
• But how do internal labour markets evolve and
  adapt to a changing environment? And how do they
  shape disadvantage within organisations and
  within the labour market?

3
Research challenges 1

• Segmentation effects
• How do internal labour markets generate
  inequality among different occupations and
  workforce groups?
• Good and bad jobs
• Multiple bundles of HR practices (efficiency
  versus fuzzy logic)
• Erosion and vulnerability to market forces
• Does the blurring of organisational boundaries
  spell the end to internal labour markets?
• Co-production of services but HR coordination
  problems
• Outsourcing, temp agencies and partnerships
  fragment collective unity of organisations
  workforce
• Projects CIPD project on Managing People in
  Networks ESRC Fragmenting Work, British Academy
  IT Outsourcing

Projects ILO Decent Work DoH project on HRM in
NHS DoH project on Care Workforce Telework and
work-life balance
4
Research challenges 2

• Societal effects
• How do national institutions shape internal
  labour markets?
• Many lessons from understanding the different
  inter-linkages between institutions and HR
  practices
• Institutions enable and constrain employer
  behaviour (set upper and lower limits to a range
  of strategic choices on pay, training, etc.)
• Projects ILO Minimum Wage Systems US childcare
  workforce
• What are the lessons for borrowing US-type or
  Japanese-type bundles of HR practices?
• Prescriptions depend on how the bundle of HR
  practices fits with a countrys interlocking web
  of institutions
• Projects RSF Low wage work

5
Research challenges 3

• Vulnerable work
• Is low pay the result of market conditions or
  some mix of rules, norms, custom and power
  relations?
• Low paid workers may enjoy limited freedom of
  choice
• Employers in low wage sectors may enjoy limited
  choice
• Projects Low Pay Commission Frontline Service
  Work
• Do internal labour markets contribute to the
  undervaluation of many areas of womens work?
• Limited employer innovation in training and skill
  development policies leads to a disconnect
  between job design and employee capability
• Employer discrimination still pervasive
• Projects Equal Opportunities Commission Dublin
  Foundation Russell Sage Foundation

6
Publication highlights

• Appelbaum, E., Bernhardt, A., Murnane, R. J.
  (Eds). (2003). Low Wage America How Employers
  Are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace. NY
  Russell Sage Foundation.
• Greenhill, A., Wilson, M. (2006). Haven or
  Hell? Telework, Flexibility, and Family in the
  E-Society- A Marxist Analysis. European Journal
  on Information Systems, special issue on
  Organisational and Ethical Issues in the
  Information Society, 15, 379-388.
• Grimshaw, D., Carroll, M. (2006). Adjusting to
  the National Minimum Wage constraints and
  incentives to change in six low paying sectors.
  Industrial Relations Journal, 37 (1), 22-47.
• Marchington, M., Grimshaw, D., Rubery, J.,
  Willmott, H. (Eds). (2005). Fragmenting Work
  Blurring Organisational Boundaries and
  Disordering Hierarchies. Oxford University Press.
  
• Marchington, M., Grimshaw, D., Rubery, J.,
  Carroll, M., Pass, S., (2008). Managing People in
  Networked Organisations. London CIPD
• Rubery, J., Grimshaw, D. P., Figueiredo, H.
  (2005). How to Close the Gender Pay Gap in
  Europe Towards the Gender Mainstreaming of Pay
  Policy. Industrial Relations Journal, 36 (3),
  184-213.
• Rubery, J., Ward, K.,Grimshaw, D., Beynon, H.
  (2005). Working time, industrial relations and
  the new employment relationship. Time and
  Society, 14 (1), 89-111.