Mapping Key Dimensions

of Industrial Relations

Andrea Fromm, Ricardo Rodriguez Contreras,

Christian Welz

Dublin, 21 April 2016

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Research questions

Key dimensions

Views of stakeholders

IR cluster perspective

Indicators

Next steps / discussion

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Research questions1

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Which elements can be identified as

the

key dimensions of a

comparative framework

for industrial relations?

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1. Which elements can be identified as the

key dimensions and sub-dimensions of

a comparative framework for industrial

relations?

2. Which indicators and which data

sources can be used for measuring these

dimensions?

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Key dimensions

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INDUSTRIAL

DEMOCRACY

JOB & EMPLOYMENT

QUALITY

INDUSTRIAL COMPETITVENESSSOCIAL JUSTICE

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Views of stakeholders

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IR cluster perspective

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North Centre–West South West Centre–East

IR regime Nordic

corporatismsocial partnership

polarised

pluralism

liberal

pluralism

transition economies

role of SPs in

public policyinstitutionalised

irregular/

politicisedrare/event-driven

irregular/

politicised

role of State limited ‘shadow’ of hierarchyfrequent

interventionnon-intervention

organiser of

transition

power balance labour-oriented balanced alternating employer-oriented state

bargaining style integrativedistributive/

conflict-orientedacquiescent

employee representation

union based/high coverage

dual channel/high coverage

variable/ mixedunion based/

small coverage

predominant level of CB

sectorsector/company company

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Centre-East

South

Centre-West

North

West

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Pre-testing the four key dimensions

Most predominant level of

acceptance

Industrial democracy

Competitiveness

Job quality

Social Justice

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Indicators

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- Relevance: Can the indicator be brought into strong association with one or

several issues of one of the four key dimensions? Will the indicator be able to

detect and display a variation that is important enough to warrant further

investigation? Due to its importance, this criterion was double-weighted.

- Validity & embeddedness: Does the indicator indeed measure what it claims to

measure? Is it not confounded by other factors? I.e. does the measure adequately

represent all facets of a concept? How well is it embedded in the overall concept?

- Availability and accessibility of data: Is time-series data available? In which

intervals? Is data accessible in the first place? The higher the interval, the more

useful the data!

- Comparability: Is aggregated comparable across all EU member states plus

Norway? I.e. are all countries in the EU covered by the indicator?

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Sub-dimension

Indicator Source Score (e.g., Spain)

/ Year

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

1. R&D personnel per 1000 labour force World Bank

2,653 (2013)

2. Number of entreprises newly born in t-2 having survived to

2,951,815 (2013)

3. R&D Expenditure Eurostat

4. Business Churn rate (birth+death) Eurostat entrepreneurship

5. Ease of doing businesses

World Bank Group Flagship Report

74.86 (33 out of 189)

Growth and Productivity 6. GDP growth per capita Eurostat

23,100p (2015)

7. Minimum wage increase Eurostat or OECD

8. Unit labour cost Eurostat -4.2 (2014)

9. Total unemployment rate Eurostat 20.9 (2015Q4)

10. youth unemployment rate Eurostat Sophistication of resources

11. Individuals with at least medium level of computer/internet skills Eurostat

12. % adults in education/training Eurostat

13. Infrastructure ranking (survey of businesses)

Global Competitiveness Report (WEF)

Market Stability

14. Inflation rate Eurostat

15. property rights protection (survey of businesses)

Global Competitiveness Report

16. Incidence of corruption Transparency International

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any proposals for other indicators ???

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Next steps / discussion

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CAR

•Apply and test selected indicators

•Assess relevance of indicators

•Qualitative contextualisation of indicators

Overview report

•summarise findings

•visualize results

•discussion on potential composite index on IR performance

Experts meeting

•discussion and validation of results

Final report

•consolidated report

• ... to be continued in 2016:

•EF working life country profiles

•non-EU Member States