The psychologisation of employment relations?

• Date: 01 January 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12030
• Published date: 01 January 2014
• Author: John Godard

PROVOCATION SERIES PAPER

The psychologisation of employment relations?

John Godard, University of Manitoba

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 24, no 1, 2014, pages 1–18

This article argues that HRM is by nature a multidisciplinary subject area, and that it has traditionally

been closely associated with the field of industrial relations (IR). However, it appears to have increasingly

been taken over by industrial and organisational (I-O) psychology, and in the process increasingly

associated with organisational behaviour, which has also been taken over by I-O psychology. Coupled

with the narrowing and marginalisation of IR, this has meant an increasing ‘psychologisation’ not only

of the study of HRM, but of the study of employment relations in general. This article discusses why

this appears to have been happening, what its implications might be and what (if anything) might be

done about it. Focus is on developments within North America, although the issues raised apply, perhaps,

to different degrees, across liberal market countries and possibly beyond.

Contact: John Godard, Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

R3T 5V4. Email: godard@cc.umanitoba.ca

INTRODUCTION

In liberal market economies, the field of industrial relations (IR) has traditionally been the

main venue for the study of all aspects of work and employment relations. Beginning in

the 1960s, it increasingly came to narrow its focus to the collective relations between

employers and their employees, or what may be referred to as ‘labour relations’. However,

it also (especially in North America) began to be located in business schools, where unions

and collective bargaining had become widely accepted as a reality of the managerial

environment, and students were either required or encouraged to take at least one labour

relations course (often labelled ‘industrial relations’). As a result, students came to be

exposed to a pluralistic (or even radical) conception of the employment relation, and to the

importance of distinctive employee rights and interests.

This all began to change in the 1980s. Particularly important was the morphing of personnel

into ‘human resource management’ (HRM) and the corresponding popularisation of ‘new’

HRM practices. The latter largely engendered a psychological approach to selection, training

and performance management, and by no means represented the entire domain of the former,

which (as defined here) encompasses all of HRM as a functional area, and as such has in most

university programmes tended to include labour economics, labour and employment law, and

labour relations – as well as psychologically based courses. There was also the emergence of

the ‘high performance’ paradigm, which advocated the use of selected HRM practices but was

much more focused on ‘new’ work practices, including the establishment of autonomous teams

and various employee voice systems. Research on the adoption and effects of this paradigm

tended to be multidisciplinary, although it typically proceeded from a more macro,

organisational level of analysis, with labour relations scholars making perhaps the greatest

contribution (e.g. Kochan et al., 1986; see Delaney and Godard, 2001: 406–407).

These developments came to be the subject of major debate, especially as they appeared to

de-emphasise the importance of distinctive worker rights and interests, and the asymmetrical

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12030

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 1, 2014 1

© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Godard, J. (2014) ‘The psychologisation of employment relations?’. Human Resource Management Journal 24:

1, 1–18.

character of the employment relation (Legge, 1995; Godard and Delaney, 2000; Delaney and

Godard, 2001), and also because of their potential totalising effects (e.g. Townley, 1994).

However, IR programmes and labour relations courses remained relatively widespread (even

if in retreat), and trade unions continued to be important (if weakened) players. Although the

‘new HRM’, in particular, drew extensively from organisational behaviour (OB), the field of

HRM was still more broadly defined, with IR scholars making a substantial contribution to its

development in the US (Kaufman, 2008, 2012) and even playing a dominant role in the UK

(Ackers and Wilkinson, 2003). This was also true for the study of new work practices, which

typically afforded unions and workplace representation important roles (Kochan and Osterman,

1995). As such, there was still at least recognition that employees represented a distinctive

‘stakeholder’ group, and the study of HRM was not dominated by a single discipline or

orientation.

The central concern of this article is that this may soon no longer be the case – if it is not

already (e.g. see Strauss, 2001: 885). This may be especially true in North America, where it

would appear that the field of HRM, and the study of employment relations in general, are

being increasingly taken over by industrial and organisational (I-O) psychologists, with

potential implications not just for how managers view their employees, but also for how their

employees view themselves. It is not certain just how complete this takeover has been to date,

for the simple reason that HRM lends itself to multiple disciplines and in practice covers a

number of topics largely ‘outside of’ the grasp of psychology. But it would, at minimum,

appear to be well under way. Although psychology has always played an important role in

some areas of HRM (e.g. selection testing), its domain has expanded substantially, with I-O

psychologists coming to dominate not just core HRM subjects, but increasingly also the study

of the labour-management relation (‘the psychological contract’), of work practices (‘team

effectiveness’), and even of resistance (‘counterproductive behaviour’).

What makes this potential takeover of particular concern is that it has been occurring at the

same time that the study of labour relations (and trade unions) has continued to be narrowed

and marginalised. Again, this has been especially so in business schools, where it has now

increasingly come to be viewed as, at best, a subarea of HRM. Also important, and less noticed,

has been the long-since-completed takeover of OB by I-O psychologists, and the corresponding

displacement of the more sociological and ethnographic orientation associated with its main

progenitor, the human relations school (Whyte, 1987). The result may be the gradual

psychologisation of the study of not just HRM, but of employment relations in general (e.g.

Sparrow and Cooper, 2003).

Based on this concern, this article addresses the process by which and reasons why the

psychologisation of employment relations, and especially of HRM, appears to have been

occurring and why this matters. My purpose is to provoke critical reflection and debate, and in

so doing possibly help alter the current trajectory of research and teaching, in business schools

in particular. Much of what I argueis conjectural and normative, and some of the ground covered

is not new.Although the arguments I advance appear to have a significant empirical basis to them

(see Appendix), they are largely that: arguments. They arealso based in considerable measure on

the North American (and especially Canadian) experience, with which I am most familiar.In this

regard, there may be important differences acrosseven liberal market economies in view of their

different institutional and ultimately academic traditions and trajectories (Frege,2003, 2007; Kelly,

2003). For example, it does not appear that this takeover is nearly as advanced in UK business

schools (see Appendix; also Ackers, 2011: 324–325), likely because of these differences. However,

the concerns that I raise can at minimum provide a warning to guard against, and possibly some

basis for preventing, any further such development.

Psychologisation of employment relations?

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 1, 20142

© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.