Prof Cicely Ashwin NAB4.19, Dr Virginia Doellgast NAB4.05, Dr Dominick Donnelly NAB4.07, Prof Sarosh Kuruvilla TBA and Prof Carola Frege NAB5.20

This course is compulsory on the MSc in International Employment Relations and Human Resource Management. This course is available on the MSc in Management, MSc in Management (CEMS MIM) and MSc in Management and Human Resources. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Also available as an option to students on the MPhil/PhD in Management: Employment Relations and Organisational Behaviour.

A general knowledge of the social sciences is required.

The course aims to provide an introduction to the comparative analysis of work and employment relations at national, firm and workplace level throughout the world. It will introduce the employment relationship, the key concepts surrounding it, and the theories required to understand it. The strategies and policies of the main actors will be explored through cross-national comparative analysis. The course will also introduce the main 'models' of employment relations: the Anglo-Saxon, Japanese and European Social Models, as well as models of employment relations in the transitional economies.

The aim of the classes will be to provide an introduction to the comparative analysis of employment relations, and to ensure that students have both the conceptual and empirical grounding they need to take the options offered in international comparative human resource management and cross-cultural management.

15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the MT. 1 hour and 30 minutes of seminars in the ST.

The teaching is highly participative and includes lectures and seminars. Group working is an integral part of the course and students are expected to actively contribute to their class groups. The course is demanding of students and depends for its success partly upon their commitment and willingness to participate fully.

Students have to complete a class presentation. A non-assessed essay can be written during MT.

C Frege & J Kelly (Eds) Comparative Employment Relations in the Global Economy, Routledge, 2013; G Bamber, R Lansbury & N Wailes (Eds), International and Comparative Employment Relations, 5th edn, Sage, 2011; R Hyman, Understanding European Trade Unionism: Between Market, Class and Society, Sage, 2001; M J Morley, P Gunnigle & DG Collings (Eds), Global Industrial Relations, Routledge, 2006.

Exam (65%, duration: 2 hours) in the main exam period.
Essay (25%, 2000 words) in the LT.
Class participation (10%).