Organizational Structure, Human Resource Practices and Industrial Relations

Reports the results of a study examining the relationships between organizational structure (formalization, specialization, participation, and centralization) and human resource practices, (training and internal labour market (ILM) with the state of the firm’s industrial relations. The data were collected by means of extensive interviews with managers and union/employee association representatives from 51 Canadian organizations. The results show that decision‐making centralization has a negative impact on a firm’s industrial relations situations (both from the union’s and the management’s point of view), while training has a positive effect on the quality of a company’s industrial relations. The ILM, on the other hand, did not appear to have a major impact on the firm’s industrial relations. Given the current arguments about the changing nature of industrial relations, and that they are influenced by other aspects of a firm’s operations, our preliminary study has reinforced the need to study in more detail the impact of training and organizational structure on industrial relations.