Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This project aimed to examine partnership at work as a social process in which the forms and outputs of partnership and non-partnership arrangements are shaped by the interplay of relations between management, trade unions and employees.

The aims of the research were to define the content of 'partnership at work' within the framework of the contemporary UK context; develop and typify alternative models of management-union relations within the terms of the partnership discourse; and determine the range of trade union and employee responses to partnership at the workplace level.

The research design adopted a triangulation methodology involving intensive workplace case studies, employee surveys, documentary analysis and sectoral analysis. This mixed methods data collection includes transcripts of 221 interviews conducted with employees and managers at various skill levels, at five organisations selected from the engineering, financial services, local government and insurance sectors, and quantitative data files containing the responses from questionnaires distributed to employees at the same organisations. Research was also conducted at a sixth organisation, based in the National Health Service, but the results are not included in this collection for secondary use.


Main Topics:

Topics covered in the interviews and questionnaires include employment history, job characteristics, details of training and education, trade unions and membership, labour relations and attitudes to partnership between organisations. The questionnaire data also includes some demographic details.

Standard Measures:
The quantitative questionnaires incorporated some of the measures of employee attitude adopted in the Workplace Employee Relations Survey, 1998 (held at the UK Data Archive (UKDA) under SNs 3955 and 4026).