Framing Work: Unitary, Pluralist and Critical Perspectives in the Twenty-first Century, By Edmund Heery (2016) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 318 pages. ISBN: 978-0-1995-6946-5 Perspectives on Contemporary Professional Work, Edited by Adrian Wilkinson, Donald Hislop and Christine Coupland (2016) Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN: 978-1-78347-557-5

These books both offer perspectives on work, big picture perspectives, but from very different lenses. Heery is concerned to trace how the Unitarist, Pluralist and Critical frames of reference for viewing work have played out—both in terms of research and practice—over the past four decades. The book edited by Wilkinson, Hislop and Coupland examines the professions as a form of work organization, trying to identify their critical characteristics and the impact of competing pressures like managerialism. The books have very different agendas making direct comparisons difficult. However, they both raise a number of important issues and themes about how work should be approached, including common gaps in contemporary research and writing. I will deal with each book in turn before drawing out some unifying themes. British scholar Alan Fox coined the terms unitary and pluralist frames of reference in 1966 and, self-critiquing his earlier work, added the critical frame of reference in 1974. Fox’s work had particular resonance as the late 1960s and early 1970s were a period when those studying, teaching and researching industrial relations were looking for a unifying model or theme with which they could both differentiate and promote the contribution to the field (it was seen as too multidisciplinary to be a discipline in its own right). Fox’s contribution was not seminal, but it was influential. Heery has set himself the task of examining how research, practice and prescription played out over the next four decades viewed through each of these frames, including documenting the rise of human resource management (HRM) though, unfortunately, not so much on the commensurate collapse of industrial relations as an academic field. It would have been useful had Heery spent a little time examining the historical and philosophical underpinnings of Fox’s frames of references as others have done and continue to do (see, for example, Fry and Mees, 2017). A chapter is devoted to each frame followed by a thematic analysis of each with regard to debates on four key issues, namely participation, customers, equality and the recent economic crisis. Heery takes great care to present a balanced view of each frame, but in his efforts to be even handed, some things get lost. At one point, he observes that the fields of economics and psychology contain a wide spectrum of views. This is true, but the dominant modes of discourse within both portray workers essentially in individualised terms. Similarly, while HRM contains soft and hard streams, both take an essential intra-organizational perspective on work, which leaves unions at best as the margins and, more easily, accommodates to a unitarist perspective. Moreover, however HRM may view the world as anyone who has taught the subject should know, there is often a major tension between its prescriptions and what corporate management business strategies dictate. Do not get me wrong. Heery has views and these points are to be found. However, the reader must work to find them. Heery’s account of the rise of HRM and its shifts over time has value but, even here, there are diplomatic silences. For example, Heery points to the role some IR scholars played in initiating several HRM journals, but does not wonder whether this was not actually contributing to the decline of IR. Industrial relations journals continue to flourish; many of my generation have adapted to the new terrain in their teaching and research; and have enjoyed successful even privileged academic careers to reach professorial rank in good universities. On the other hand, the teaching of IR has all but collapsed to a rump of residual service subjects in HR majors. Advertized academic jobs in the …