Abstract
This chapter examines workplace non-union cooperation at Suncorp Group in Australia, especially the notion of partnership in this context. For this purpose, we define workplace partnership as the ‘labour–management cooperation for mutual gains’ following Ackers and Payne (1998: Page number). The social partnership model operates at the workplace level in different ways within different national contexts (Badigannavar and Kelly 2005; Guest and Peccei 2001). Common to these workplace arrangements is the provision of information to and consultation with employees and/or their representatives during decision-making processes and the mutually beneficial outcomes in relation to trust, industrial relations (IR) climate and economic benefits (see also Badigannavar and Kelly 2005; Holland et al. 2012; Townsend et al. 2014).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ackers, P., Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., & Dundon, T. (2005). Partnership and voice with or without trade unions: Changing UK management approaches to organisational participation. In M. Stuart & M. Martinez-Lucio (Eds.), Partnership and modernisation in employment relations (pp. 23–45). London: Routledge.
Badigannavar, V., & Kelly, J. (2005). Labour-management partnership in the non-union retail sector. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 16(8), 1529–1544.
Gollan, P., & Xu, Y. (2014). NER at Suncorp Group: The Suncorp Group Employee Council. In P. Gollan, B. Kaufman, D. Tara, & A. Wilkinson (Eds.), Voice and involvement and work. London: Routledge.
Gollan, P. J. (2006). Representation at Suncorp: What do the employees want? Human Resource Management Journal, 16(3), 268–286.
Gollan, P. J. (2010). Employer strategies towards non-union collective voice. In A. Wilkinson, P. J. Gollan, M. Marchington, & D. Lewin (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of participation in organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Guest, D., & Peccei, R. (2001). Partnership at work: Mutuality and the balance of advantage. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39(2), 207–236.
Holland, P., Cooper, B. K., Pyman, A., & Teicher, J. (2012). Trust in management: The role of employee voice arrangements and perceived managerial opposition to unions. Human Resource Management Journal, 22(4), 377–391. doi:10.1111/1748-8583.12002.
Johnstone, S., Ackers, P., & Wilkinson, A. (2010). Better than nothing? Is non-union partnership a contradiction in terms? Journal of Industrial Relations, 52(2), 151–168.
Kaufman, B., & Taras, D. G. (2010). Employee participation through non-union forms of employee representation. In A. Wilkinson, P. J. Gollan, M. Marchington, & D. Lewin (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of participation in organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Markey, R. (2007). A case study of non-union employee representation in Australia: The Suncorp Metway Employee Council Inc. (SMEC). Journal of Industrial Relations, 49, 187–209.
SGEC (2015). Free, confidential, specialist service available to all Suncorp group employees. Available from http://the-ec.com.au/. Accessed June 2015.
Siggelkow, N. (2007). Persuasion with case studies. Academy of Management Journal, 50(1), 20–24.
Stake, R. (2005). Qualitative case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research. London: Sage.
Townsend, K., Wilkinson, A., & Burgess, J. (2014). Routes to partial success: Collaborative employment relations and employee engagement. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25, 915–930. doi:10.1080/09585192.2012.743478.
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shah, D., Xu, Y., Gollan, P., Wilkinson, A. (2016). In Search of Workplace Partnership at Suncorp. In: Johnstone, S., Wilkinson, A. (eds) Developing Positive Employment Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-42772-4_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-42772-4_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-42770-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-42772-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)