Industrial relations have changed dramatically during the last twenty to thirty years. This is the case both in respect to industrial relations as a practical field or area in modern society, and in respect to industrial relations as a theoretical and intellectual field.
As a practical field changes in industrial relations has mostly been related to the erosion of traditional industrial relations institutions and actors in a broad number of industrialized countries. As a theoretical and intellectual field changes has been related to the development of new types of intellectual disciplines like HRM that have challenged the way industrial relation theory conceptualized the relation between employer and employee.
The changes in the theory and practice of industrial relations have often been conceptualized as a situation of crises. Industrial relations as an intellectual and theoretical discipline have been very much driven by developments in the practical areas of industrial relations. New developments in the practical area of industrial relations have often led to new areas of interest in the academic industrial relations field. The erosion of institutionalized industrial relations in some countries and sectors has made some scholars fear a similar erosion of the industrial relations as an academic field.
In this paper we will try to identify how the changes – or crises – in the practical field of industrial relations has been interpreted and conceptualized in academic field of industrial relations. How has the academic IR-environment explained and identified the changes in the industrial relations systems? And how has this influenced the IR-theoretical agenda and the way industrial relations are understood in the academic field.