Also, it links labour to human rights as applied in a democratic society. IvyPanda. Therefore, instead of solving the conflicts, the strategies postpone them only to erupt at a time when the organisation is not prepared. Individuals supporting unitarism perspective assume that employees are mature enough to reach conclusive decisions on how to integrate organisational and personal interests. For instance, workplace conflict resolution rules or laws can be established through industrial relations (Grady, 1993). The. Unitarian has clearly defined individual employees who share common interests and goals. 2 : the quality or state of being plural. The approach believes that it is possible to do away with workplace conflicts. This perspective tries to integrate the interests of managers and employees to enhance the commitment of employees as well as their loyalty. Since it is hard for organisational leaders to do away with competition within the organisation, they need to look for ways of exploiting the competition in a profitable way. According to them, trade unions are illegal interruptions to management objectives. According to the pluralist managerial perspective, the management can and should play a central role in coming up with minimum standards and designing other policies to rectify the imbalance in the bargaining power and foster equity. They believe that workplace conflicts come because of different employee interests. This perspective sees conflict as something unavoidable and a legitimate impact of the varying interests at the workplace (Lewin, Mitchell, Sherer and Industrial Relations Research Association, 1992). Unitarism is essentially individualistic in the way it approaches employee relations. Highland Commons. The unitarist framework holds that workers and managers can pull together to achieve common objectives, values and interests. In other words, it believes that management and workforce are all working for the welfare of the company. Edwards, P, 2007, Industrial relations: Theory and practice. Though it is argued that most of human resource management theory has a foundation in unitarism, most of the big and mainstream firms have put minimal emphasis on changing the management style that they use-the pluralistic manner. Disclaimer: Services provided by StudyCorgi are to be used for research purposes only. Storey, J 2000, The Realities of Human Resource Management: Managing The Employment Relationship, Open University Press, Buckingham. For instance, Ford Motor Company was well-known in the 1920s for adopting the unitarist philosophy, which held that management and labor had similar interests and were working together to further the company's success. Ross, P & Bamber, G 2009, Strategic choices in pluralist and unitarist employment relations regimes: A study of Australian telecommunications, Industrial & Labour Relations Review, vol. They believe that for an organisation to curb organisational tension, it has to make sure that it establishes a working environment that promotes self-fulfilment. In contrast, pluralism maintain sub-groups divergent by outlining individual legitimate interests and also captures the needs of both employees and managers. 12 no. This assumption makes the perspective weak, since it is hard for individuals with differing opinions to come up with an agreement without following a particular guideline. Unitarists believe that this second source of authority, which is the trade union, is to blame for tension that arises between employees and managers. Unitarists base their arguments on postulations that workplace conflict is an avoidable feature of relationships between employees and their managers. In case one of the interests dominates the others, an organisation is likely to face a crisis (Ackers 2002). The primary malady in this approach is that appropriate employees may be left out, which can, in turn, negatively impact on the productivity and the general performance of organisations (Radcliffe, 2005). On the other hand, the pluralist perspective employs conflict management strategies to address the challenges a conflict poses. Pluralists emphasise on the need for striking an even-handed balance between the different interests in a business organisation to circumvent negative results. The pluralist form of management emphasises the fact that conflict in organisations can be resolved by way of using effective industrial relations. Yes you are right Unitarian are individual members interested in the organization. 3a : a theory that there are more than one or more than two kinds of ultimate reality. When conflicts are effectively managed, the organisation gets a chance to have a new look and create more room for development. Surfacing unitarist-versus-pluralist assumptions is relevant when planning, implementing and evaluating change initiatives. 1, pp. In this case, human resource management, which has been adopted by many organisations these days, addresses the needs of employees in a significant way. Therefore, to address these problems, the managers ought to come up with rigid and direct mechanisms that would help to control all the activities the employees undertake. Third parties are viewed as irrelevant as employees Such a belief gives a steady argument for focusing on the commonality of goals to achieve a stable employee relations system. Published: 23 Aug, 2021. ]: Blackwell. Unitarists hold that to avoid such conflicts, the management team ought to identify the actions that might lead to conflicts and avoid implementing them. This is a bit strange as the parent companies back in the United States are known to use the unitarist form of human resource management (MichaeL, 1999). Unitarists claim that trade unions are the main cause of conflict in organisations and that to avoid conflicts; organisations need to eliminate trade unions. Mabey, C, Salaman, G, and Storey, J, 1998, Human resource management: A strategic introduction. Organizations have used this approach by considering alternative processes which can be beneficial during the decision-making process. This perspective views the place of work as being integrated and a harmonious entity which exists to serve a common purpose. Pluralists draw their inspirations from the systems theory devised by Dunlop in 1958. The firm works closely whereby the management and employees share common objectives or purpose. This approach has defined guidelines and procedures for significant shortcomings. Conflicting objectives are seen as abnormal in this perspective. There is a relationship between two parties, that is underpinned by communication- consultation That each party has an interest at the enterprise level process There is the non organization of workers under the unitary model. School and family circumstances, encounters at the workplaces, clubs, religions, friends, society, and occupations influence most of the understandings. This is IvyPanda's free database of academic paper samples. Unitarism has a paternalistic approach and expects the loyalty of the employees. 187-198. In return, the management would be able to come up with measures to mitigate their potential effects or address them before they happen (Bacon & Blyton 2007). (2023, February 20). There are different perspectives on managing relations in firms. This is because it allows for differing interests of workers and managers. This belief also acknowledges conflicts and consider them as desirable. Groups are becoming essential in organisations when it comes to product development and improvement of quality or productivity of firms. There is an assumption by this perspective that all stakeholders in the organisation are rational and thus confides in finding common interests. Unitarist holds that workplace conflict is avoidable. In this case, the view disregards the processes which contribute to the resolution of conflicts. Andover: Cengage Learning. Meanwhile, pluralists hold that workplace conflicts are inevitable. Unitarism is a perspective that emphasizes the shared interests of all members of an organization while pluralism is a perspective that perceives an organization as being made up of divergent sub-groups having their own legitimate interests. Therefore, unions are disliked. You are free to use it to write your own assignment, however you must reference it properly. Therefore, the unitarist perspective calls for the establishment of a single source of power and integration of organisational and employee interests. Storey (2000) posits, Unitarism does not provide any guidelines for human resource, so that it can pursue unitarism effectively (p.12). Unlike the unitarists who do not see the role of trade unions in organisations, pluralists believe that trade unions play a significant role in bringing sanity into an organisation. Unitarism perceives the entire organization as one big family where everyone shares common goals and purposes. Therefore, it is easier to find similar interests. Balnave, N, 2007, Employment relations in Australia. In the unitarism framework, the firm is perceived as being an integrated and harmonious whole. Milton, Qld: John Wiley & Sons. Besides, they are supposed to help in aligning the employee interests with the organisational goals. 3. Outsiders are seen as immaterial as representatives and businesses have a common participation. The management has the duty to conduct a free and fair promotion and recruitment exercise, come up with quality communication systems that are capable of showing the employees where their interests fall, and deal with people susceptible to personality disorders (Bacon & Blyton 2007). The philosophy underlying this framework is that enterprises or organisations have people with unique interests, objectives and aspirations. Organisations do not have time to get the opinion of every employee. They believe that the conflicts help the management to unravel the underlying tensions, therefore, helping them to come up with measures to mitigate them. Pluralism recognises the existence of conflicts in organisations. Integrating the sentiments of every employee into the organisational goals would go a long way to curb workplace conflicts. 33 no. Managers have great power, and they exert influence on employees in determining the environment under which the employees work. According to the unitarists, organisations ought to have a single source of authority. Pluralism also gives ample opportunity for employees to voice out their opinions. 24-41. Unitarist and Pluralist Perspectives in Management. Therefore, conflict appertaining to interests does not exist between employees and management (Hyman and Mason, 1995). According to this perspective, unions are viewed as legitimate representatives that represent the interests of employees. 4. StudyCorgi. Actually, conflict is endemic within the workplaces. of Illinois Press. This perspective explores the behaviour of the capitalistic society, which has a division of interests that exists between capital and labour (Bendix, 2000). The pluralistic approach does not view the role of managers as to implement organisational policies. This means that pluralist approaches of management which form a big part of contemporary human resource management are being embraced in management today (Wilton and Wilton, 2011). Reina Condos. a more recent variant, the neo-unitarist perspective; conflict theory, including the Marxist and pluralist perspectives; systems approach and the contrasting social action perspective. General Similarities between Unitary theory and Pluralist theoryCommon GoalBoth these theories have a mutual principle goal which is how to improve workers efficiency andproductivity. This mostly works for blue-collar jobs. It can be argued that some firms are putting in place measures to ensure that their employees do not adopt pluralist tendencies. The unitarists advocate for employers to have absolute powers in running the organisation. Pluralism noun. According to the unitarist perspective, the conflict is dysfunctional since it decreases loyalty and may pose threats to the relationships within the organisation. The perspective on conflict is another major difference between unitarism and pluralism. Sample question: Compare and contrast the unitary and pluralist perspectives of industrial relations and provide some typical examples of unitarist and pluralist features in workplaces. They do follow a non-union labour policy. Unitarists are possessed with the view that within any organization for that matter both the management and the employees share the same agenda. This approach has tried to integrate manager interests and enhance employees' commitment. The perspective of not having similar approaches is another vital difference between unitarist and pluralism(Dawkins et al., 2021, p. 30). "Unitarist Perspective vs. Pluralist Perspective Case Study." These features are the managerial relations and the market relations. In the unitarism framework, the firm is perceived as being an integrated and harmonious whole. 1 : the holding of two or more offices or positions (such as benefices) at the same time. Unitarism view conflicts as dysfunctional whereas pluralism acknowledges conflicts and view them as desirable. Power in this perspective is distributed among major bargaining groups in the organisation so that no party takes advantage or manipulates the other. This is especially when these conflicts are identified and put under control by using institutional responses. "Unitarist and Pluralist Perspectives in Management." student. Therefore, conflict can be used in the understanding of the deep-seated tensions to identify and adequately address them. StudyCorgi, 20 Feb. 2023, studycorgi.com/unitarist-and-pluralist-perspectives-in-management/. 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