Employee Voice in the Unipolar World a Comparative Empirical Study of Trends in Finland and India

Abstract

In this paper, the author questions the basic notion that the world over, the industrial relations systems (IRSs) are converging (towards the ‘liberal market economy’ configuration). The author argues that even when faced with a similar economic and business crisis, different economies can have divergent responses regarding the IRS. The dialectic between the strength of the existing systems based on social and cultural underpinning and the source of ownership of capital and power of accompanying business systems configuration determines primarily the outcome. This author proves by using union density data, a measure of employee voices, for Finland (from coordinated market economies), and India (from the liberal market economies). As analysis points out, in the same period, while facing similar economic crises, even though product market has undergone similar changes, union density for Finland has increased whereas India has come down.