ABSTRACT
Recently, the scope of labour history has widened to incorporate the study of employers, firms and management and there has been a sharper recognition of the need to critically analyse the nature of capitalism in order to understand social and labour relations.1 �esearch on the beha�iour of firms has demonstrated a far more comple� �ision of the importance of different management policies and practices o�er time, di�isions bet�een different factions of capital, the often contradictory nature of employer strategy and the close interaction between capital and labour, resulting in a more nuanced and diverse history of workplace relations across time and space.2 However, while the historical studies of employers within particular country settings ha�e increased, international comparati�e historical analysis of employer practice has been rare. Such approaches are important in developing theoretical conceptions of employer practice beyond the conte�ts of specific national economic settings. ��o studies that stand out in this respect are �ittler’s The Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies and Tolliday and Zeitlin’s edited volume The Power to Manage? Both provide historical and comparative analysis of employer policy and practice in a range of different country settings. A �ey finding from these studies is that rather than a single means of capitalist control, employers ha�e di�erged significantly bet�een countries in their labour
management policies as well as in the timing of the evolution of control from indirect, simple and more coercive means to more sophisticated, bureaucratic and consensual practices. Moreover, what these comparative studies reveal is a more complex interpretation of factors which have shaped such variation, with both economic conte�ts and differing institutional en�ironments playing important roles in shaping employer strategies and behaviour.3
