Evaluating Industrial Relations Systems of OECD Countries from 1993 to 2005: A Two-Dimensional Approach

Abstract

This article uses both cross-sectional and longitudinal methods to evaluate the national industrial relations systems of 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1993 to 2005. We adopt a pluralistic view of industrial relations that gives equal weight to efficiency and equity, along with a general systems model consisting of input, process and output. We rank each country in terms of a combined score of efficiency and equity. We find that the 30 OECD countries can be separated into three distinct groups (high on both equity and efficiency; high on efficiency but low on equity; moderate on equity and low on efficiency), and that these groups exhibit considerable stability over time.