Industrial Relations Research Centre Projects

Interactive Simulated Negotiation Skills Project

Under the direction of Dr. Ian McAndrew, the IRRC has recently been granted an Innovation in Teaching Grant for a project involving the production of an interactive DVD as an exciting new vehicle for bringing reality to the teaching of negotiation and mediation. It will allow students to take part in a simulated negotiation, to be 'dropped into' the process at various points and to be confronted with a variety of alternative scenarios and strategic choices at key turning points in the negotiation.

Dr. McAndrew and Virginia Phillips, also from the Management Department, have combined video analysis of actual bargaining and mediation behaviour with a documentary-style interview technique. The videotaped interviews provide both a forum for participant analysis during the negotiations and an additional instrument for debriefing and analysis after the fact.

The project also involves experienced industrial mediators and negotiators, a group of improvisational actors and the technical expertise of the University's media staff. The DVD will be available as another important teaching aid for negotiation and mediation training at both undergraduate and executive education levels later this year.

This pioneering work has received enthusiatic responses at conferences in Australia and the United States.

Employer Attitudes Towards and Experience of Collective Bargaining in the South Island

The aim of the project is to examine the phenomenon that collective bargaining in the private sector is declining under the Employment Relations Act 2000, despite clear policy intent to the contrary. A University of Otago Research Grant will enable research that will explore associations between the low incidence of collective bargaining in the New Zealand private sector and the attitudes of employing organisations toward, and prior experiences or perceptions of collective bargaining. The project addresses the paucity of relevant research into why collective bargaining is or is not adopted, in contrast to the plethora of studies on its wage and conditions outcomes. Given a range of theoretical explanations for the low uptake of collective bargaining, large scale survey techniques will be used to test their explanatory value. The survey sample will be drawn from employing organisations throughout the South Island employing 10 or more staff identified through an appropriate business directory.

The Relationship of Employer and Employee Ideology to High Commitment Management and Employee Commitment

Principal researcher Dr. Fiona Edgar has been awarded a 2005 University of Otago Research Grant to examine the relationship between ideology, HCM and employee commitment. The following research questions are put forward:

• What are the dominant empirical values and beliefs (ideology) of (a) employers and (b) employees?
• Is high usage of HCM related to strong unitarism in (a) employer and (b) employee values and beliefs (ideology)?
• Is increased usage of HCM related to (a) low levels of unionism and (b) increased levels of employee commitment?
• Is strong unitarism in employee values and beliefs (ideology) related to (a) low levels of unionism and (b) high levels of employee commitment?

This study aims to contribute to:

• The academic field of HRM by providing ‘real’ data on employer and employee ideologies (values and beliefs) and the relationship between ideology, HCM and employee commitment;
• NZ union practice by highlighting if unions can maintain successful relations with its constituents and management; and
• Practitioners by providing evidence about employees’ values and beliefs and showing how they might be affected by HCM practice.

Research Approach

Two complementary approaches to data collection are employed in this study – interviews and a survey. It is intended this dual-method approach should enhance the reliability and validity of the findings obtained. Surveys can be useful for generalising results but are restrictive in terms of their ability to generate theory (Ichniowski et al., 1996). Interviews, on the other hand, aid in the analyses of survey data and help clarify responses (MacDuffie, 1995). They also enable rich insights to be obtained about the nature of workplace relationships.

Interviews

A series of interviews will be conducted across a mixed sample of organizations with those people responsible for the HRM function, union leaders and employees to identify what factors influence the adoption of HCM practice in an organization, and how HCM is viewed by these three groups. An aim of the interview process is to determine if the interests of unions and HCM are antithetical.

Survey

The survey which will be distributed by post has already been developed and pre-tested, thus it can be distributed as soon as a suitable sample has been obtained. The aim of the survey is to collect data enabling an examination of the relationship between values and beliefs, HRM practice and the outcome of employee commitment.