From industrial relations to manpower planning: the transformations of Singapore's industrial relations

Abstract

This paper applies the strategic choice model of industrial relations to the transformations of industrial relations in Singapore and to their progression from ‘industrial relations’ to ‘manpower planning’. The usefulness of the strategic choice model for explaining the transformations of Singapore's industrial relations is formulated as a research question and the paper demonstrates the model as having greater utility than the conventional systems model. The three transformations are from colonial administration to regulated pluralism, 1960–67; from regulated pluralism to corporatism, 1968–78; and from corporatism to corporatist paternalism, 1979–86. The progression to manpower planning has been since 1997. Transformation is defined as morphological change in which elements of the transformed are retained in the new form. A progression, in this case, is a development of the pre-existing form rather than its transformation. The data, which were collected by interviews and from secondary sources, are presented as a historical case study and subjected to analytical induction.