earticle

영어

A literature review on industrial relations shows that trade unions with bargaining power affect many aspects of human resource management, far beyond the traditional areas like compensation or employee representation. The purpose of this study is to investigate if there is a significant difference in the adoption of human resource management practices between unionized and non-unionized sectors. Specifically, this study deals with 17 practices regarding recruiting/selection, compensation, skill training, job analysis, performance evaluation, and employment-related issue. The data, which are surveyed by the Korea Productivity Center (KPC) in 2006, are utilized here for the first time. A simple cross-tabulation analysis seems to show a positive relationship between unions and the adoption of practices. However, the results from a probit analysis controlling other factors, which may influence the adoption of practices by firms, reveal that the existence of trade unions is unlikely to increase the adoption of most practices, except only three or four such as job analysis, outplacement program, and education-related practice(s). These results imply that trade unions are unlikely to affect human resource management beyond compensation issues, contrary to general belief. It is uncertain for now whether the results reflect powerlessness of unions or an assimilation trend between the two sectors, with regard to human resource management.