Dr Chunyun Li, NAB.3.18

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Human Resources and Organisations (International Employment Relations and Human Resource Management). This course is available on the CEMS Exchange, Global MSc in Management, Global MSc in Management (CEMS MiM), Global MSc in Management (MBA Exchange), MBA Exchange, MRes/PhD in Management (Employment Relations and Human Resources) and MSc in Inequalities and Social Science. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

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 dynamics of employment relations across the increasingly global markets, the key concepts and topics surrounding it (such as employee voice, dignity of work, outsourcing, labour conflicts, labour productivity, skills), 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 US/British, 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 in a global world. It also ensures 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.

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 on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy. 

Students are required to submit an essay outline in Week 4, matching the topic of their first summative essay.

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.

Essay (40%, 2500 words) in the MT.
Essay (50%, 2500 words) in the LT.
Class participation (10%).