Industrial relations in Europe: theory and practice

Industrial relations as a distinctive field of study has been principally a feature of the English-speaking countries. In most of continental Europe, aspects of employment and its regulation have normally been studied as subsidiary themes within the various social-science disciplines. In the past decade, radical changes in the practice of industrial relations in Britain and the United States have led some to question the continued viability of the subject. Yet paradoxically, in continental Europe there has been a vigorous growth of interest in developing an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the topic. The author welcomes this trend and calls for the construction of a genuinely European field of industrial relations.