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1. Mapping Key Dimensions
of Industrial Relations
Andrea Fromm, Ricardo Rodriguez Contreras,
Christian Welz
Dublin, 21 April 2016

2. 2
Research questions
Key dimensions
Views of stakeholders
IR cluster perspective
Indicators
Next steps / discussion
2
3
4
6
5
1

3. 3
Research questions1
2
3
4
6
5

4. 4
Which elements can be identified as
the
key dimensions of a
comparative framework
for industrial relations?

5. 5
1. Which elements can be identified as the
key dimensions and sub-dimensions of
a comparative framework for industrial
relations?
2. Which indicators and which data
sources can be used for measuring these
dimensions?

6. 6
Key dimensions
1
2
3
4
6
5

7. 7

12. INDUSTRIAL
DEMOCRACY
JOB &
EMPLOYMENT
QUALITY
INDUSTRIAL
COMPETITVENESSSOCIAL JUSTICE

13. 13
Views of stakeholders
1
2
3
4
6
5

14. 14

15. 15

16. 16

17. 17
IR cluster perspective
1
2
3
4
6
5

18. 18
North Centre–West South West Centre–East
IR regime Nordic
corporatism
social partnership
polarised
pluralism
liberal
pluralism
transition economies
role of SPs in
public policy
institutionalised
irregular/
politicised
rare/event-driven
irregular/
politicised
role of State limited ‘shadow’ of hierarchy
frequent
intervention
non-intervention
organiser of
transition
power balance labour-oriented balanced alternating employer-oriented state
bargaining style integrative
distributive/
conflict-oriented
acquiescent
employee
representation
union based/
high coverage
dual channel/
high coverage
variable/ mixed
union based/
small coverage
predominant
level of CB
sector
sector/company company

19. 19
Centre-East
South
Centre-West
North
West

20. 20

21. Pre-testing the four key dimensions
Most predominant level of
acceptance
Industrial democracy
Competitiveness
Job quality
Social Justice

22. 22
Indicators
1
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3
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5

24. 24
- Relevance: Can the indicator be brought into strong association with one or
several issues of one of the four key dimensions? Will the indicator be able to
detect and display a variation that is important enough to warrant further
investigation? Due to its importance, this criterion was double-weighted.
- Validity & embeddedness: Does the indicator indeed measure what it claims to
measure? Is it not confounded by other factors? I.e. does the measure adequately
represent all facets of a concept? How well is it embedded in the overall concept?
- Availability and accessibility of data: Is time-series data available? In which
intervals? Is data accessible in the first place? The higher the interval, the more
useful the data!
- Comparability: Is aggregated comparable across all EU member states plus
Norway? I.e. are all countries in the EU covered by the indicator?

25. 25

26. 26
Sub-
dimension
Indicator Source
Score (e.g., Spain)
/ Year
Innovation &
Entrepreneur
ship
1. R&D personnel per 1000 labour
force World Bank
2,653
(2013)
2. Number of entreprises newly born in
t-2 having survived to
2,951,815
(2013)
3. R&D Expenditure Eurostat
4. Business Churn rate (birth+death)
Eurostat
entrepreneurship
5. Ease of doing businesses World Bank Group
Flagship Report
74.86
(33 out of 189)
Growth and
Productivity 6. GDP growth per capita Eurostat
23,100p
(2015)
7. Minimum wage increase Eurostat or OECD
8. Unit labour cost Eurostat
-4.2
(2014)
9. Total unemployment rate Eurostat
20.9
(2015Q4)
10. youth unemployment rate Eurostat
Sophisticatio
n of
resources
11. Individuals with at least medium
level of computer/internet skills Eurostat
12. % adults in education/training
Eurostat
13. Infrastructure ranking (survey of
businesses)
Global
Competitiveness
Report (WEF)
Market
Stability
14. Inflation rate Eurostat
15. property rights protection (survey of
businesses)
Global
Competitiveness
Report
16. Incidence of corruption
Transparency
International

27. 27
any proposals for other indicators ???
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

28. 28
Next steps / discussion
1
2
3
4
6
5

29. 29
CAR
•Apply and test
selected indicators
•Assess relevance of
indicators
•Qualitative
contextualisation of
indicators
Overview report
•summarise findings
•visualize results
•discussion on
potential composite
index on IR
performance
Experts meeting
•discussion and
validation of results
Final report
•consolidated report
•... to be continued in
2016:
•EF working life
country profiles
•non-EU Member
States