Strategic Choice and the Transformations of Singapore's Industrial Relations

Abstract

The aim of the thesis is to test the usefulness of the strategic choice model for explaining the transformations of industrial relations in a country other than the USA, in this case Singapore. Three historical transformations and a progression of the third are discernible from the changes that have taken place in Singapore's industrial relations since the Peoples Action Party (PAP) was elected into office in 1959. By analysing these transformations the thesis aims to test the explanatory usefulness of the strategic choice model and thereby make a contribution to other potential international applications. In analysing and interpreting the industrial relations of a single country at least four special considerations are taken into account: 'nation' as a distinguishing criterion; the determination of who initiates the transformation strategies; the necessity to analyse the quality and intensity of the relationships of the parties with each of the transformations; the scope for strategic choices. Addressing the primary research question of the usefulness of the strategic choice model raises secondary questions. The answers to the secondary questions help in answering the primary question. The thesis adopts what may be called an 'emergent' research design, which requires an historical case study and a process of analytical induction for its methodology. The organisation of the thesis closely reflects the stages of analytical induction. The Singapore industrial relations data were collected by interviews and from primary and secondary sources. The thesis is organised into nine chapters. Chapters 1 to 4 provide the academic framework. Chapters 5 to 8 recount and analyse the phenomena of each of Singapore's three industrial relations transformations and their development since the third. Chapter 9 reviews the data of Chapters 5 to 8 and concludes that the strategic choice model becomes increasingly useful with the passage of each of the transformations and their progression.