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Institutional Environments, Employer Practices, and States in Liberal Market Economies
Author(s) -
Godard John
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/1468-232x.00245
Subject(s) - normative , new institutionalism , jungle , state (computer science) , politics , institutionalism , order (exchange) , field (mathematics) , work (physics) , sociology , economics , relation (database) , economic sociology , political science , economic system , political economy , law and economics , law , social science , mechanical engineering , ecology , mathematics , finance , algorithm , database , computer science , pure mathematics , biology , engineering
This article draws on the new institutionalism in economics, sociology, and political studies in order to establish a foundation for analyzing how states shape employer human resource management and union relations. It then reviews and extends the available literature on this topic, establishing how, in addition to legal regulation, states help to shape the cognitive and normative rules that undergird employer decision processes, the social and economic environment within which employers act, and ultimately, the relations of authority constituting the employment relation itself and hence employer policy orientations. The article concludes with a discussion of the prospects for state policy initiatives in view of established employer paradigms, institutional logics, and state traditions, and identifies possibilities for further work in this area. A neoclassical world would be a jungle, and no society would be viable. Douglas North (1981:11)