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This article argues thatHRMis 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 byI‐Opsychology. Coupled with the narrowing and marginalisation ofIR, this has meant an increasing 'psychologisation' not only of the study ofHRM, 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 withinNorthAmerica, although the issues raised apply, perhaps, to different degrees, across liberal market countries and possibly beyond.

AbstractDrawing upon Weberian social theory, this paper begins by arguing that the educative function should play an important role in business schools, but that there have been growing pressures to adopt a more applied technical orientation over the past decade or so ‐ especially in the area of industrial relations (IR). Then, after considering various possible counterarguments, it presents results from a recent survey of Canadian industrial relations scholars intended to establish the extent to which these concerns are supported. Both the descriptive and the multivariate findings strongly suggest that, with respect to IR scholars, they are not. However, weaknesses in the data, coupled with the limited sample composition, restrict the conclusions that can be drawn. Further research is called for.RésuméSe fondant sur la théorie sociale de Weber, ce document avance, au tout début, que la fonction pédagogique devrait jouer un rǒle important dans les écoles de Commerce, mais il y a eu, cependant, durant la dernière décennie ou presque, des pressions grandissantes à adopter une orientation de nature appliquée et technique, surtout dans le domaine des relations industrielles. Ensuite, après avoir considéré plusieurs autres arguments contraires, le document présente les réultats d'un récent sondage mené auprès des recherchistes Canadiens oeuvrant dans le domaine des relations industielles et dont le but était d'établir jusqu'à quel point ces problèmes sont reconnus. Et les résultats descriptifs, et les résultats variés semblent indiquer fortement qu'en ce qui a trait aux recherchistes des relations industrielles ils ne le sont pas. Tout de měme, des faiblesses dans les données alliées à un échantillon rédigé d'une façon limitée, restreignent les conclusions qu'on pourrait soutirer. De plus amples recherches s'imposent.

This article explores how institutional differences matter to the quality of a nation's jobs; job quality is conceived as a dimension of a national economy's social performance and thus defined in accordance with civic principles. Focus is on the two archetypical varieties of capitalism, the United States and Germany. Using data from a 2009 telephone survey of U.S. and German workers, we find that the overall attainment of civic principles, as perceived by workers, is no different in Germany than in the United States, even though the German institutional environment should be more conducive to them. This is due to higher worker expectations in Germany and a tendency for employer practices to compensate for the weaker (liberal) institutional environment in the United States. Once these are controlled, German workers report substantially more positive outcomes. We find that institutional differences also matter in how various employer practices are adopted and hence have indirect as well as direct implications.

Germany and the USA have very different systems of legal representation and rights at work, but these differences and their effects may have lessened. We draw on a large-scale telephone survey to explore worker perceptions of these systems, and find that perceptions of German workers are more favourable than those of their US counterparts, but not by as much as might be expected. Our findings could in part be explained by cross-national differences in both worker ideologies and the way the different systems function, but they also point to the importance of perceptions in understanding and assessing cross-national institutional differences, and have implications for the future of workplace representation and rights in both nations.