Comparison of Unitarism and Others

Unitarism

See the business organisation as a team united and shared interests and values, with senior management as the sole source of authority and focus of loyalty. Such an approach:

Advantages

* Struggle to comprehend conflict at work, such as strikes or opposition to change.

* Expecting harmony between managers and workers

* Seeing conflict as irrational and unnecessary

* Cast managers as charismatic leaders who used employee involvement to win employee commitment through the influence of US popular management thinking on HRM in 1980s

Disadvantages

* Hostility to trade unions which represents for independent employees in organisations (Trade unions are regarded as opposition groups or factions, cutting across authority lines and as outside bodies interfering in the family relationships between managers and workers and throwing up rival leaders to challenge management authority)

* Was a ‘straw man’ to stand for unrealistic, managerial view of the business organisation

Pluralism

It is widely-used in studies of politics to describe the sociological diversity of advanced capitalist societies, composed of many different interest and belief groups. In term of ER, the term is used with similar meaning to describe relationships within the business organisation.

* In contrast, with unitarism, reject the model of the company as a unified order, following management leadership

* Resist the radical view of the organisation as riven by a ‘class war’ between management and labour.

Advantages

* Groups are often in conflict with each other. There is no single focus of loyalty and authority but rival sources of attachment. (ex: in large complex organisation such as National Health Service, these groups will include professors, doctors, nurses, each with their own associations)

* Focus on the division between goals, interests and values of management, which revolve around the need to improve profits or performance, and those of...