Industrial Relations & Innovative
Employees: From empirics to a
roadmap for social dialogue
esign Charles & Ray Eames - Hang it all © Vitra
D
Guy Van Gyes
Stan De Spiegelaere
HIVA-KU Leuven
THE EMPIRICAL WORK: VIGOR - Project
• Intra- & inter-university cooperation
– KULeuven:
• CESO
• HIVA
Geert Van Hootegem
Guy Van Gyes
– UGent
• Psychology
• Sociologie
•
•
•
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Frederik Anseel
Ronan Van Rossem
5 doctoral students + 3 affiliated researchers
IWT
2009 -2013
www.vigorinnovation.com
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VIGOR – Project
1.
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5.
6.
Feedback & Innovative Work Behaviour
Ambidexterity: realigning exploration en exploitation
Innovatie and networks in research teams
Innovation in SME’s
Architecture of the work environment & creativeness
Labour Regulation, work systems & innovative work behaviour
Ugent – Psychologie
Ugent – Psychologie
Ugent – Sociologie
Ugent – Sociologie
KULeuven - Sociologie
KULeuven – HIVA
Labour regulation, work systems & innovative work behaviour
How are labour conditions related to employee innovativeness?
~ Outcomes of industrial relations
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Policy Context
Europa 2020:
Competitivity
Innovation
Labour Market Flexibility:
Contractual, financial & temporal
Working smarter & better
Vigor
HIVA
Working cheaper
Literature research
Employee-level survey (+/- 1000) in 5 industries
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Two ideal types of innovation
STI-innovation
• Science, technology,
innovation
• Science and technology
push (fundamental
research)
• Explicit, codified
knowledge
• What and why
• Experiment
• Separated process (R&D)
DUI-innovation
• Doing understanding,
interacting
• Demand-pull, practical
need
• Implicit, informal
knowledge
• How and who
• Experience
• Integrated business
process
Source: Jensen et al.
Job Insecurity & Innovative Work Behaviour
Autonomy
Innovative Work Behaviour
Engagement
Job Insecurity
Innovative Work Behaviour– Job insecurity
• Reduces the work engagement
• Reduces the innovative work behaviour
• Negative correlation with autonomy
Financial Rewards & IWB
Individual Performance Related Pay (PRP)
- PRP => extrinsic motivation
- Job => intrinsic motivation
- IWB: intrinsic > extrinsic
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Financial Rewards & IWB
Collective Rewards & IWB
- Free-rider
- Actual influence
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Conclusion
• Labour conditions, industrial relations are
important for enabling employees to innovate.
• Yet, labour organisation (job design, group
design) is more important
• Plus, they shouldn’t be analysed in isolation!
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esign Charles & Ray Eames - Hang it all © Vitra
D
… to ideas on strategic renewal of
workplace social dialogue
Linking empirics to state-of-the art
• Synthesis
– Innovation study DG Enterprise of EC:
www.cordis.lu
– Literature review for the Flemish Minister of
Work
• No empirical research, borrowing from others
• De Spiegelaere, S., Van Gyes, G.(2012).
Employee Driven Innovation and Industrial
Relations. In: Høyrup S., Bonnafous-Boucher M.,
Hasse C., Lotz M., Møller K. (Eds.), EmployeeDriven Innovation: A New Approach, Chapt. 12.
Hampshire (UK):Palgrave Macmillan,230-245
Roadmap of strategic renewal
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Institutions matter
Role of workplace employee representation
Conceptual difference
Institutional change
Actor transformation
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1. Institutions matters ? Double speak from
EU/OECD
Of course, you’ll have the usual credo
To innovate: We need money (= low taxes and costs)
and flexibility (=less rules)
But there is another story (told by
economists, picked up by OECD,
EC DG Enterprise)
To innovate: We need a system of
supporting institutions and rules,
because of
MARKET FAILURES
2. Key role of direct participation
• PEOPLE THINK HARDER: Employee participation
creates greater commitment to the business goals.
• MORE PEOPLE THINK: greater resources are directed
towards the improvement of products and processes.
• MORE THINK BETTER extended flow of information
creates a greater potential for creativity.
• THE ‘TOP’ CHANGES BETTER: provides top
management with more information, thereby decreasing
the amount of sub-optimal decision making.
• THE ‘BOTTOM’ FOLLOWS EASIER: creates a culture
where workers are more likely to support decisions.
3. Complementarities direct/indirect
Research shows
• Direct participation: you’ll find it more in
unionised settings
• Direct participation: it works better in unionised
settings
• Direct participation: in non-unionised settings
with direct participation, workers see it as a
valuable alternative for union representation
A strong track needs strong sleepers
Employee representation
• Roles to play: ‘Voice’ of involved workers
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Conflict arbitrator
Bargaining expert
Neutral change agent
Feedback mechanism for management
• Conditions
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No ‘hold up’ on gains from both sides
Employment security, no downsizing fear
Open, trustworthy management attitude
Necessary competences & information on ‘business’
High interactivity with rank and file (otherwise
alienation)
4. Conceptual difference: focus on ‘working
smarter’ not ‘harder’
LESS
MORE
Labour conditions
Work organisation
Trade
Union
Employer
Bargaining
Trade
Union
Employer
Dialogue
Change management in a business strategy geared to innovation
Conceptual difference
Dialogue on work
Bargaining
Problem-driven
Interest-driven
Decision
Contract
Climate
Co-operative
Competitive
Method
Discussion
Pressure
Starting point
Goal
5. On the move to new productivity coalitions?
• Fordist compromise: more with less
– National sector bargaining as core instrument
to distribute productivity gains => maintaining
aggregate national demand
– Workplace information and consultation rights:
role in labour controle; safe and within
standards; knowledge to use in higher-level
bargaining => work rules; wage scales; job
classifications; health/safety monitoring
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5. On the move to new productivity coalitions
• Post-fordist compromise: better not cheaper
– Productivity gains based on ‘added-value’
– Transnational bargaining to set ‘income floor’ to
maintain aggregate demand
– Lower-level bargaining/ variable pay/rewards
– Workplace representation:
• Knowledge activism (Hall et al., 2006): autonomous
collection and strategic application of legal,
technical, and medical knowledge as political tools
• Job classifying => Job design
• Work according to rules => Learning organisation
• Safety – Accidents – Environment => Psychosocial
– Stress 20
In the end
• Still about governance of employment
relationship
ECONOMIC
EXCHANGE
POWER
RELATIONSHIP
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