The Rhetoric of Power: The Case of Bettavalve Placid, Part 1

Power forms part of the everyday common‐sense language and conceptual framework used by experts and laymen alike to describe industrial relations processes and phenomena. Yet, despite the obvious centrality and importance of power to the study of industrial relations, it may be argued that the concept represents a major lacuna in the theoretical development of the discipline. Thus, there is relatively little literature in industrial relations which focuses directly on the concept. From a study of this literature, and the much more voluminous and extensive work on power in other disciplines (notably sociology, economics and political science), one can discern two almost exclusive central foci. Firstly, there is one school of thought which conceptualises power as an outcome or the result of some other process. From this perspective, the power of social actors can only be ascertained by an analysis of their effects on outcomes or observable events. The second school sees power as a material resource which can be possessed, stored and deployed to achieve the goals of the actor. Whilst both these approaches throw valuable light on some aspects of power, it may be suggested that the predominance of these constrained perspectives has resulted in the relative neglect of other important aspects of power.