Professor Tom Redman: Obituary

• Date: 01 April 2016
• Author: Greg J. Bamber,Ed Snape
• Published date: 01 April 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12105

Professor Tom Redman: Obituary

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol26, no 2, 2016, pages 232–234

Professor Tom Redman of Durham University, UK, diedsuddenly and unexpectedly on 18

Decemberin Thailand, en route back to theUK from a research visit to China.He was there

with Edwina, his wife.

Tom was well known in the UK and internationally as a good and modest man as well as an

outstanding scholar, a committed teacher, a skilled administrator and a very supportive colleague.

He was Professorof Human Resource Management at Durham,and before that at Sheffield,having

spent the earlyyears of his academic career at TeessideUniversity.Although based in the UK for his

whole career,Tom’s work wasinternational in scope,and he was a frequent visitorto other European

countries, aswell as to Asia, Australia and NorthAmerica. He spent severalperiods as a visitor, for

example,in Hong Kong and Australian universities, wherehe was well liked and respected,not least

for the time he generously devoted tohelping students and junior colleagues.

Tom was an outstanding scholar, with an excellent record in research. His initial interest was in

industrial relations, and he maintained this throughout his career, at the same time developing

research interests in the broader management field. Over the years, he published in industrial

relations, organisational behaviour and human resourcemanagement (HRM).

Tom’s main contribution to the industrial relations literature was in examining the relationship

between unions and their members. In particular, he had a keen interest in the factors underlying

union activism and employees’commitment to their union. He analysed the antecedents of

commitment and participation in a number of occupational contexts, including both public sector

and private sector workers. He also examined the individual and workplace-levelfactors that may

influence such relationships, with papers on the role of union exchange ideology and industrial

relations climate. He was aware of the limitations of exchange theory as a basis for analysing

member-union relationships, arguing that such relationships may be to some extent ideological or

covenantal in nature.

This initial interest in union commitment was extended to include multiple commitments, with

early papers on occupational commitment, and papers examining the implications of various

patterns of commitment and the extent to which employees’commitments to different foci are

competing or complementary. By now, Tom was addressing issues dealt with in theorganisational

behaviour literature, but always withan eye on the management implications.

Pleasecite this articlein press as: Snape, E.and Bamber, G.J. (2016)‘Professor Tom Redman:Obituary’.HumanResource ManagementJournal

26:2, 232–234

232 HUMAN RESOURCEMANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL26, NO 2, 2016

©2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.

doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12105

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