Adapting Industrial Relations to Serve Knowledge-based Economies

Abstract

The central challenge facing industrial relations today is how to adapt its policies, institutions, practices, and research to serve the needs of the workforce and society in a global, knowledge-based economy. The field of industrial relations rose to prominence in the 20th century because it helped workers and employers adapt to their growing industrial economies. Today, we observe that many of the institutions and policies developed for the industrial era are in decline. A similar transformation of policies, institutions, and practices will be needed to help workers, families, communities, and societies adapt to the requirements of a knowledge-based, global economy. This will require renewed commitment to universal and life-long education and training, broad diffusion of knowledge-based work systems in organizations, more transparency and more direct worker voice in corporate governance structures and processes, flexible labor market policies that support mobility and portability of benefits across jobs and movement in and out of full time work as women and men move through different stages of their careers and family lives, and new institutions for worker voice and representation at work and in society. Given the global nature of economic activity, these reforms cannot be limited to single national systems; they must be part of a broader international consensus and coordinated effort to build transnational systems for managing cross border flows of human capital, jobs, knowledge, and value.