Competencias en materia sanitaria de las Comunidades autónomas 37

As outlined above under social forces, at a national-level, different varieties of capitalism and employment relations systems emerge from an uni-, bi- or tri-lateral process involving coercion, compromise or consensus. The outcomes are coded through legislation, rules and regulations and reflect the value systems and power realities of the dominant actors at the time. However, the parties to the debate, be they employers, the state, trade unions or academic theorists, normally reflect a diversity of approaches, frames of reference or ideologies, which they believe will serve their interests and secure their goals. This multiplicity may be particularly evident in societies grappling with cultural diversity, forces of globalisation, development, extremes of wealth and poverty, and unemployment. The different approaches taken by the parties are underpinned by values adopted from a variety of systems, be they political, economic, religious, cultural, ethical or philosophical (Salamon, 2000). Irrespective of the national position adopted, but constrained by it, the different frames of reference continue to influence the on-going interaction between employers and employees.

35 Fox (1974), writing in Britain, outlined unitarist, pluralist and radical frames of reference to categorise employer and employee approaches to organisations and to industrial relations. This can be expanded to include the state in the system, as developed in Germany and Europe, by including the approach of social corporatism (Finnemore, 2006). Central to the categorisation are the views of the actors on the firstly, commonality or difference in interests and values, secondly, conflict and conflict resolution, and lastly, power and decision-making authority.

The unitarist frame of reference embraces the concept of commonality of values, interests and goals which denies any inherent conflict. The controlling and co-ordinating mechanism in the organisational hierarchy is management decision-making; thus, all authority and power should be vested in management and any competing power-group such as a trade union is delegitimised. Management may embrace autocratic, paternalistic or human resource management approaches to secure organisational performance (Budd & Bhave, 2008; Craig & Solomon, 1996; Finnemore, 2006; Heery, Bacon, Blyton, & Fiorito, 2008; Swanepoel & Slabbert, 2012; Watson, 2012).

In both the pluralist and social corporatist perspectives, there are different groups with both common and conflicting interests. Therefore, institutions are needed to support the markets and organisations to effectively control and coordinate the multiple employment relationships. Within these frameworks, the acquisition and exercising of worker power is fundamentally in the interests of society since this integrates workers into a democratic system at both political and economic levels to resolve the labour and social problem (Heery, Bacon, Blyton, & Fiorito, 2008). While recognising conflicting interests, the pluralist acceptance of the interdependence of employees and employers in the pursuit of organisational performance and the social corporatism ideals of social contract shifts the emphasis to include the common interests between employees and employers. Conflict is accepted and must be managed through dispute resolution structures. Trade unions are legitimised in both approaches and are important mechanisms to balance power between employers and employees, however, social corporatism sees a role for trade unions beyond adversarial collective bargaining in all aspects of cooperation at workplace level and representing employees at national and other levels in society (Finnemore, 2006; Swanepoel & Slabbert, 2012).

The third framework is the critical perspective which includes the radical and Marxist positions. The emphasis of this view is on the differences between employers and employees where the organisation reflects the class divisions in the broader society. From the radical

36 position the objective is to reform the system, not by developing institutions to balance power, but by addressing the structural nature of capital-labour conflicts. The Marxists would then take this a step further in order to move the economy from a capitalist to a socialist system (Budd & Bhave, 2008; Crouch, 1982; Heery, Bacon, Blyton, & Fiorito, 2008; Swanepoel & Slabbert, 2012).

If one accepts the pluralist position, that different actors have common and conflicting interests, employees’ interests would include material benefits, job security, justice and fairness and psychological and social rewards. Employers are principally concerned with maximising organisational performance. While the primary objective of the state would be the maintenance of social order, the state may assume either a minimalist role and provide freedom and the rule of law or seek to intervene and provide fairness and justice in the society (Budd and Bhave, 2008; Salamon, 2000).

Perceptions of fairness and justice, while considered by some to be primarily an employee interest, emerge as important ideas in the functioning of political, economic and social institutions for all actors operating in democratic societies (Budd and Bhave,2008; Salamon, 2000).

Fairness and justice are important in any exchange relationship (Blau, 1964; Turner, 2014) and thus fundamental to the entire conduct of employment relations (Salamon , 2000). Notions of fairness, which are determined by norms, expectations and history, influence the course of a relationship (Salamon , 2000). Perceived fairness and justice may foster relationships and elicit a sense of trust whereas perceived unfairness may evoke negative emotions and conflict. Fairness and justice are also determinants of attitudes and performance (Colquitt, et al., 2013; Otto, Baumert, & Bobocel, 2011; Turner, 2014; Wittmer, Martin, & Tekleab, 2010).

Greenberg introduced the concept of organisational justice to assist in explaining an employee’s evaluation of an organisation (Greenberg, 1990). The dimensions of organisational justice are distributive, procedural and interactional.

Distributive justice is the perception of the fairness of outcomes. The norms for judging fair outcomes include the criteria of equality, equity and need (Coyle-Shapiro & Dhensa, 2011; Greenberg, 1990; Nel, Swanepoel, Kirsten, Erasmus, & Tsabadi, 2005; Salamon, 2000). Otto, Baumert, and Bobocel (2011) found that cultural differences may influence norms of distributive fairness with individualism related to equity and collectivism to equality.

Procedural justice focuses on the process used to achieve outcomes. In procedural justice fairness is linked to the control over the presentation of arguments and the time given to the

37 presentation of argument. A fair process is unbiased, allows for accurate communication, ensures that all interested parties are represented, given opportunity to present arguments and follows agreed rules of behaviour (Coyle-Shapiro & Dhensa, 2011; Greenberg, 1990; Nel, Swanepoel, Kirsten, Erasmus, & Tsabadi, 2005).

Interactional justice has two facets; the perception of the fairness of the interpersonal relations (interpersonal justice) which revolves around respect and appropriateness and secondly, the perception of the fairness of the communication (informational justice) which concerns the truthfulness, extent and reasonableness of the explanations and arguments (Coyle-Shapiro & Dhensa, 2011; Nel, Swanepoel, Kirsten, Erasmus, & Tsabadi, 2005).

A substantial body of research has investigated the association of justice with exchange relationships and employee attitudes, behaviours and performance. It has been established that the justice dimensions, distributive, procedural and interactional, affect the attitudes, behaviour and performance through the mechanism of the exchange relationships (Bhal & Gulati, 2004; Cheung & Wu, 2013; Tekleab, Takeuchi, & Taylor, 2005; Wittmer, Martin, & Tekleab, 2010).