relations between capital and labor are ones of ‘structured antagonism’ (Edwards
1990 ), capital, in order to constantly revolutionize the work process, must seek
some level of creativity and cooperation from labor. LPT has therefore long
recognized that there is a continuum of possible, situationally driven, and over-
lapping worker responses to relations of ownership and control in the workplace—
from resistance to accommodation, compliance, and consent.
Despite the fact that this approach does not seek to explain or predict speciWc
outcomes (such as deskilling) from more general imperatives, it has still left many
writers more sympathetic to HRM unhappy. In essence, core LPT is still seen as a
structuralist straitjacket. Particular objection is made to the control imperative and
the idea of managers as ‘agents of capital’ (Storey 1985 : Watson 1994 ). However, this
confuses a James Bond notion of agent—people given orders and sent out into the
world to execute them—with a more general notion of particular groups of
managers who must interpret and enact their agency role on behalf of capital
within speciWc institutional, market, and workplace conditions. As Elger ( 2001 )
observes, post-Braverman LPT came to accept a ‘relative autonomy’ of the work-
place within capitalism. Whilst some on the more Marxist wing demur, most
contributors accept that though there is an inherent struggle between capital and
labor at work, this has no necessary links with any wider class struggle.
HRM theory, unlike LPT, does not appear to conceptualize capitalism as setting
structural limits to the degree to which the interests of labor and capital can
converge. The latter is inherently more skeptical about managerial ideology, pes-
simistic about the progressive character of workplace change and the capacity to
reconcile competing interests. However, the two ‘sides’ should be capable of
debating and attempting to resolve the status of empirical claims about trends in
the workplace and the wider economy.
There are no signiWcant methodological barriers. It is true that LPT writers have
a preference for qualitative approaches that can reach beneath the surface of
managerial rhetoric and conventional survey evidence on worker attitudes and
dominant narratives of workplace change to identify the reality of practices on the
ground and uncover worker voice and action. However, though most LPT research
has been based on case studies or ethnographies, it is not in principle hostile to
quantitative approaches. Indeed, the core propositions of LPT cannot be addressed
through qualitative case studies alone. Survey and related methods can also be used
to test dominant rhetorics against worker voice and management practice (e.g.
Harley 1999 ). As ThursWeld and Hamblett note, because of its realist epistemology,
LPT thus diVers from the inXuential idealist critique that focuses on HRM as ‘a
cultural construction that is made up of a number of metaphors and myths’ ( 2004 :
114 ). LPT and HRM can therefore Wsh in the same waters, testing diVerent
propositions through identical datasets.
In sum, LPT ‘has tried to account for the variations and complexity of workplace
relations and identify key trends across sectors, companies and nation states, whilst
150 paul thompson and bill harley