Contents Page: NZJER, 2020, 44(3)
Name

Title

Erling Rasmussen,
Felicity Lamm,
Bernard Walker, andJulienne Molineaux
Erling Rasmussen,
Felicity Lamm andJulienne Molineaux

Editors’ Note: Open Access to the New
Zealand Journal of Employment
Relations (NZJER)

Azka Ghafoor
Jarrod Haar

Open Access Publishing: The historicaland current developments surrounding
changes at the New Zealand Journal of
Employment Relations

Organisational-Based Self Esteem,
and Meaningful Work, and Creativity
Behaviours: A Moderated-Mediation
Model with Supervisor Support

Commentary: Labour market change andMichael Fletcher and employee protection in New Zealand in
Erling Rasmussen
light of the ‘future of work’ debate

Jarrod Haar

David Peetz

Benjamin Mrowinski,
David Brougham andDavid Tappin

Living Wage Employer Status and Job
Attitudes and Behaviours

Awards and collective bargaining inAustralia: are they relevant to New
Zealand?
Managers’ Perceptions of Artificial
Intelligence and Automation: Insights
into the Future of Work

Page
Numbers
1

2-10

11-31

32-44

45-57

58-75

76-91

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 1

Editors’ Note: Open Access to the New Zealand Journal of
Employment Relations (NZJER)
We are pleased to announce that the New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations (NZJER)
will be open access through AUT Library’s Tuwhera Open Journal Publishing website.
While we have not taken the decision lightly, we are committed to disseminating quality New
Zealand-relevant research and, by making the Journal open access, we hope that we advance
this aim. Access to the Journal is via the link: https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/nzjer/ and forthcoming
articles will be available as from volume 45, issue 1.
We welcome all relevant, quality manuscripts, and submissions can be made via the website.
Instructions to the authors can also be found on the website. Previous issues can still beaccessed via https://www.nzjournal.org/. We would also like to point out that the papers
published in this issue, 44(3), are pre-COVID-19 and, as such, reflect the time before thepandemic.
Thank you,
Erling Rasmussen, Felicity Lamm, Bernard Walker, and Julienne Molineaux
Editors, New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations

1

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 2-10

Open Access Publishing: The historical and current developments
surrounding changes at the New Zealand Journal of Employment
Relations
ERLING RASMUSSEN*, FELICITY LAMM** and JULIENNE MOLINEAUX***
Abstract
The article highlights the long process that open access publishing has taken both in terms of ourdecision to provide open access to the New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations but also in thegeneral sphere of open access publishing. The article commences with a brief overview of the different
debates and forms of open access journals. We also chronicle the various stages of our decision tomove from the traditional, user-pays model to open access publishing. While technologicaldevelopments have facilitated more open access publishing, there are also a number of key barriers,
especially the universities’ use of rankings of journals as performance management proxies, whichmakes it difficult to move from traditional to open access publishing. It is suggested, however, that
open access requirements from major funders could be a game changer which will support better publicaccess to research findings and adjust the balance between traditional and open access publishing.
Keywords: open access publishing; subscription-based publishing; journals rankings

Introduction
This article reflects on our journey towards open access for the New Zealand Journal of Employment
Relations, as well as providing open access to the textbooks that we have written. This journey has
occurred in stages and the key decision-making moments are highlighted below. It is remarkable how
this personal journey is aligned with growing international and national support for open accesspublishing and an increasing academic and political debate over access to research findings andadverse publishing costs. The open access movement has a long history, reflecting the growing
concerns over the large profits and profit margins of major publishing firms. But since the so-called
2003 ‘Berlin Declaration’, which set out open access principles (see below), new and cheaper
technology has facilitated a rise in different publishing avenues, thus challenging the traditional formsof publishing.
While different publishing approaches are possible, there are also several barriers to overcome before
open access publishing will rival traditional academic publishing modes. A key barrier is theinternational trend of tertiary institutions using journal rankings as part of performance managing
academic staff. The current preferential journal rankings used in New Zealand have been generated
from Australia and, more often than not, favour overseas journals. Rankings have, therefore,*

Professor of Work and Employment, Department of Management, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. Emailcontact: erling.rasmussen@aut.ac.nz**
Associate Professor, Department of Management, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand***
School of Social Sciences, AUT, Auckland, New Zealand2New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 2-10
something of an imperialistic dimension which can be harmful for national or indigenous research
initiatives and have clearly bolstered the influence and incomes of international publishing firms.
Although the article highlights how open access publishing has gained in status and influence over thelast couple of decades, this may not be the crucial wholesale reform needed to rein in traditional
publishing approaches and the tertiary institutions’ fixation with ranking systems. Instead, it is the shift
in philosophy amongst key funders of research that has enhanced the accessibility of research reports
and findings. Major funders of research are now insisting that there will be open public access to theinsights gained by the funded research, though often in tandem with publication in traditional research
publications. This is the case in Northern Europe where, for example, the Danish government has set
the target of having public access to all publicly funded research by 2025 (Wien & Dorch, 2018).
Likewise, there are now many funders in Australia and New Zealand where open access to research
insights will be stipulated in the funding criteria (for example, the Australian Research Council andAustralia’s National Health and Medical Research Council). In the future, we expect more funders
will incorporate such requirements and start policing these open access criteria more vigorously.

Different forms of open access
There are varying degrees of open access journals. There are also varying degrees of quality, asHarzing (2014, p.2) cautions:[O]penaccess, online technologies are interacting with new revenue generating businessmodels and historic assessment systems, leading to the rise of predatory open access (POA)
journals that prioritize profit over the integrity of academic scholarship. Such interaction isleading to disruptive distortions that are systematically undermining academia’s ability todisseminate the highest quality scholarship and to benefit from free, timely access.
The different forms of open access journals are commonly categorised into three groups: “gold”,“green”, and “hybrid” open access journals (Laakso, 2014). In the “gold” open access category, thejournal editor(s) publish the articles directly onto the journal’s website (Björk, et al., 2014; Zhang &Watson, 2017). “Green” open access refers to indirect free access to an article or an earlier version of
the manuscript that is available on the web at a location other than the website of the journal publisher(Harnad et al., 2004). “Green”, in this context, comes from the notion of publishers giving a “green
light” for uploading openly available copies of the article contents (Laakso, 2014). A key difference
between “gold” and “green” open access is that with “gold” open access, the entire journal content
becomes available from a single website whereas with “green” open access, copies of a random andlimited selection of the articles are scattered around the web (Björk, et al., 2014).
Over the last few years, more and more traditional subscription-based journals, most of them belonging
to the large commercial publishers, have started to offer authors a hybrid open access option. There
are a variety of hybrid models. In some hybrid models, the published article sits behind a paywall but
the author can self-archive or self-publish on their own webpage, sometimes after an embargo period(Zhang & Watson, 2017). In these cases, the rights to self-publish or for readers to reproduce the article
are bound by the restrictions of the publisher’s copyright policy (see Suber, 2015). In another hybrid
model, the publisher is partially funded by subscriptions and only provides open access for thoseindividual articles for which the authors (or research sponsor) pay a publication fee. One could argue
that these are not true open access, if it can be considered ‘open’ at all. In yet another version of a3

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 2-10
hybrid model, some open access journals require authors to pay a fee for publication, covering thecosts of editing and typesetting (and possibly a koha, a volunteer payment, for reviewers). In somecases, an author’s institution or research grant will cover these fees, but it does create an impositionon the author. Some would argue, though, that these developments can be seen as a slowly creeping
threat to liberal, unpaid, self-archiving rights. Moreover, there is growing evidence that paying to makean article open access does not represent a worthwhile investment, if the motivation for publishing ina hybrid open access journal is to increase the number of citations (Mueller-Langer & Watt, 2014;
Zhang & Watson, 2017).

The recent promotion of open access publishing
Open access publishing has a long history, and, in many cases, it has been wholly supported byuniversities that have established renowned publishing houses, such as Oxford University Press andHarvard University Press. However, open access publishing appears to have taken a major leap
forward in the new millennium as the activities of major international publishing firms have become
more controversial. The pressure for more open access prompted the so-called Berlin Declaration in
2003, which established criteria for Open Access:The author(s) and right holder(s) of such contributions grant(s) to all users a free,irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit
and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital
medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship ….
The promotion of open access publishing also gained widespread media attention as part of Harvard
University’s attack on publishers and their continuous price hikes of journal subscriptions during 2011
and 2012.
A memo from Harvard Library to the University’s 2,100 teaching and research staff called foraction after warning it could no longer afford the price hikes imposed by many large journal
publishers, which bill the library around $3.5m a year (Sample, 2012, p.1).
The memo also “…encouraged its faculty members to make their research freely available throughopen access journals” (Sample, 2012). It was made clear that publishers were achieving extraordinary
profit margins (over 35 per cent in some cases) and annual subscriptions to some journals were in thetens of thousands of dollars.
While there was no mention of a specific publishing company, the Harvard University action prompteda boycott campaign, which gathered the names of more than 10,000 academics, against international
publishing firm Elsevier. Elsevier felt obliged to state that it had good collaboration with Harvard
University and other major universities, and that it had only raised its prices with five per cent per year
in recent times. Still, the boycott drew attention to the prices, profits and profit margins of major
publishing firms, and resulted in Harvard University recommending that its researchers make theirresearch freely available in open access journals (see below).
So what happened after the attack on publishers and their prices by Harvard University? On the surface
it seemed that not a lot had changed. The publishing firms kept increasing their prices, universities
4New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 2-10
were under financial pressure to keep accommodating these price increases and, at many universities,
student fees kept rising, partly to cover the subscription costs. The extent of British universities’ costs
is indicated in Table 1 which shows that British universities paid large sums to the 10 main academic
publishers. Overall, some £950.6 million were paid to the world’s 10 biggest publishing houses
between 2010 and 2019 (Grove, 2020). According to a recent media report, Elsevier had a £2,538
million revenue in 2018, with £942 million in profit and a profit margin of 37.1 per cent (up 0.1 percent compared to 2017) while Elsevier’s owner, the firm RELX, had a £7,492 million revenue and£2,346 million operating profits (Page, 2019). These kind of profit margins would surely be the envy
of most businesses and is reliant, of course, on ‘free’ labour provided by academics.

Table 1: British Universities and some of their spending on academic publishing

Source: cited in Grove, 2020

A recent media article (addressed to the Minister of Education) by two Danish researchers has called
on a paradigm shift in favour of open access publishing (Wien & Dorch, 2019). Again, Elsevier’s
profits and profit margin were mentioned, but it was also pointed out that it was necessary to address
the management behaviour of universities. In particular, the prevalence of journal rankings as a crucial
element of staff management systems was a major barrier to shift the balance towards open accesspublishing. This barrier could mean that the Danish Government’s target of having open accesspublication by 2025 will be difficult to achieve. It was suggested that the proposed paradigm shift
could happen if there were two fundamental changes: the universities’ fixation with journal ranking aspart of their performance management systems should be countered; and public funders’ insistence on
open access publishing from public funded research should be complete. Finally, it was suggested that
all academics should report on their open access publishing.

5New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 2-10
While the debate has shown the major negative effects of traditional publishing, such as costs, ranking
obsession, ‘free’ labour exploitation and direct and indirect public funding subsidising publishingrevenues, there has been less focus on the positive impact of publishing firms and how they havechanged their role in recent decades. The major publishing firms have established considerable
expertise in publishing academic research. They have invested heavily in new technology; theirwebsites are often ‘state of the art’ and they have considerable distribution and marketing expertise.
Their links with the academic research communities can facilitate an early option of new research
initiatives or challenges. Recently, the major publishing firms have branched out to offer many tailoredteaching and research services whereby they leverage their expertise in editing and publishing. For
example, Sage Author Services offers: English language editing, translations, manuscript formatting,plagiarism checks, video abstracts, and artwork preparation. Likewise, textbook publishers can offer
custom-made course plans with supporting materials and test banks.

Our road to open access publishing
Our road to open access started when we became involved in the development of textbooks in the late
1990s (see Deeks & Rasmussen, 2002; Rasmussen & Lamm, 1998), because of students’ negative
reactions to the prescribed compilations of journal articles or overseas textbooks. It is important tostress that, during the writing of these texts, we had considerable help from the associated publishing
firm, and we were able to draw on the firm’s editing, production and marketing expertise. As per usual,the publishing contract was clear in stipulating that the publishing rights (which included future
updated versions) were firmly lodged with the publisher. Although the authors were granted theauthorship rights, it was obvious that the publishing rights constituted the most important component,
including the allocation of the income stream.
An impasse appeared when we wanted to proceed with a website that would provide additional
material for textbook readers. Again, the detailed publishing and ownership contract made it
abundantly clear that the supporting material would be lodged on the publishing firm’s website andthe publishing firm would own that material. The publishing firm would also be in control of the uploadof supporting material, the speed of this upload and the ability to change uploaded material. Facedwith these constraints, we thought it would be preferable to build our own website. This would also
allow us to incorporate research and supporting material from other researchers (Rasmussen et al.,2006). Thus, we have had our own dedicated website with supporting textbook material for the lasttwo decades (see: www.employment.org.nz ).
Another important step towards a different publishing mode was the shift away from printed hardcopies of the New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations starting in 2005. The move towards
online publishing was partly driven by cost considerations (printing costs and postage costs) and partly
driven by more flexibility in compiling and presenting the journal articles. We established our own
open access website for this purpose; it is still operating and will be updated to fit with the coming
open access publishing of the New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations (see below).
When the New Zealand market for textbooks became less lucrative for publishing firms, there was amarked decline in the number of publishing firms continuing to operate. Our publisher Pearson
Education left New Zealand, with a smaller company Edify, taking over most of its activities. As part6

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 2-10of this market adjustment, we obtained the publishing rights to our textbooks from Pearson Education(that is, Rasmussen, 2009; Rasmussen & Lamm, 2002). Initially, it was the intention to publish the
textbooks through Edify but no agreement was reached on how this would be done. Consequently, we
decided to go for an open access platform whereby the various chapters of the textbooks would befreely available. This would mean that students would have free, gratis access to textbook material.
Currently, draft textbook chapters are being used in teaching at a couple of New Zealand universities.
Finally, it was decided in 2019 to move the New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations to the open
access platform of the Tuwhera website, which is administered by the Auckland University ofTechnology (AUT) Library. This process of migration to the Tuwhera website will be completed in
2020, starting with the next issue, NZJER, 45(1). While there are many other Australian and New
Zealand journals which are published online (as discussed below), the range and availability of theservices offered by the publishing team behind the Tuwhera website provides several advantages inrespect of our journal. As an established platform with dedicated staff, Tuwhera operates a Creative
Commons license for all its peer-reviewed publications. Creative Commons means that not only cananyone read the articles, but they can reuse them. Tuwhera provides training and offers operational
support for editors. Importantly, it is free for us to use and free for the public to access. We have alsodecided not to charge authors to publish their work as this practice goes against open access principles.
This will put some cost pressures on our publishing (for example, in respect of editing and journal
formatting) which will have to be covered through financial support from other sources (see McCabe& Snyder (2015) for a more detailed discussion on the economics of open access journals).

Discussion: where are we now and where are we going?
Over the last two decades, the debate about open access publishing has gained more traction as the
publishing sector has become more concentrated and internationalised. More academics have also
become more aware of the issues associated with the dominance of these international publishingfirms, especially the considerable costs absorbed by tertiary institutions every year. The high profit
margins of some publishing firms are clearly associated with the traditional publishing process where
academics do a considerable amount of ‘free’ labour; both in terms of the research itself and theeditorial and reviewing process of academic publishing. In nearly all cases, this ‘free’ labour has been
underwritten by public funding and/or grants. The traditional publishing approach can be seen as
diminution of the public role of tertiary institutions. The need to produce specific high-level research
outputs (that is, journal articles accepted in highly ranked journals) means that academics will often
disseminate their research more narrowly and slowly; wider society benefits less than enough frompublic investments in research. It has also been argued that large publishing firms ‘monetise’ researchand this drives their interest in academic publishing which, again, tends to narrow public access toacademic research findings.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 2-10
The use of metrics as a management tool is a major barrier in the growth of open access publishing.
Journal rankings can be viewed as damaging because they incentivise academics to narrow theirresearch focus and outputs to fit the metrics. In particular, small sub-disciplines (which may have low
readership levels and, therefore, low impact factors) are discriminated against in the construction of
rankings.
… [Rankings] can skew the choice of research methodology, lengthen publication lead times,
cause academics to be disloyal to the specialist journals in their field, favour theory overpractical relevance and unfairly discriminate against relatively young disciplines…
(McKinnon, 2013, p.6).
Originally designed to assist librarians with purchase decisions, journal citation metrics are one proxyfor research quality. Citation metrics and rankings and other such surrogates for quality are used byinstitutions in their hiring and promotion decisions, and by funding panels when assessing applications.
The construction of rankings, therefore, is not a neutral science. Many ranking lists give precedence
to American journals, which may not reflect the needs or characteristics of the field in the author’s
home country. Some US journals discriminate against writers who are not familiar with the US
academic cannon and may publish few non-US studies (Bankovsky, 2019), disadvantaging, inparticular, indigenous scholars.
While there have been calls for a paradigm shift, it is unlikely, in our opinion, that there will be a
substantial swing away from traditional to open access publishing in the foreseeable future. However,a re-balancing of current publishing approaches towards open access publishing could be a start that
could reduce many of the negative aspects of traditional academic publishing and domination of large,
international publishing firms. With profit margins being very high in several cases, there is clearlyroom for some considerable adjustments.

Conclusion
While the road to open access publishing has been long and slow, there are now many universities
supporting open access publishing. We are following other open access endeavours by moving the
New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations to an open access platform in 2020. The use of the
Tuwhera platform provides several advantages and will allow the Journal to continue its academic
research publication as well as benefiting from that everybody can access research findings. We arealso making our textbooks open access which will certainly benefit students in terms of costs.
Open access is not just about being able to read for free, it is also about being able to share or re-use
material without gaining permission. As Prosser (2003, p.163) argues
many authors find the open access journal model attractive as it immediately and significantly
extends dissemination of an author’s paper from those at a few hundred institutions worldwide
lucky enough to have a subscription to all interested readers with access to the Internet.

8

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 2-10
Creative Commons licenses, a form of copyright designed to promote sharing so long as specified
rules (for example, attribution of the author) are followed, are a good fit for editors looking to achieve
open access status for their publications.
Although many academics would agree that traditional publishing approaches prevent access toresearch findings and are costly for education and research institutions, they are also under pressure to
submit and support highly ranked journals. As long as universities use journal ranking as proxies forresearch quality and critical indicators in their performance management, it will be an uphill battle foropen access publishing. There is also a crucial consideration in how the expertise and facilities ofpublishing firms can be used in the pursuit of improved research access. The crucial role of researchfunding bodies could be a major lever to shift the balance in favour of open access publishing, and if
universities start demanding similar types of openness in respect of research findings, then the balance
would shift even further in respect of open access publishing.

References
Bankovsky, M. (2019). No proxy for quality: Why journal rankings in political science are problematicfor political theory research. Australian Journal of Political Science, 54(3), 301-317.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2019.1609412
Björk, B.C., Laakso, M., Welling, P., & Paetau, P. (2014). Anatomy of green open access. Journal of
the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(2), 237-250.
Deeks, J., & Rasmussen, E. (2002). Employment Relations in New Zealand. Pearson Education.
Grove, J. (2020). UK universities ‘paid big publishers £1 billion’ in past decade. Times Higher
Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-universities-paid-big-publishersps1billion-past-decade
Harnad, S., Brody, T., Vallières, F., Carr, L., Hitchcock, S., Gringras, Y., Oppenheim, C.,
Stamerjohanns, H., & Hilf, E. (2004). The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold
Roads to Open Access. Serials Review, 34(1), 36-40.
Laakso, M. (2014). Green open access policies of scholarly journal publishers: a study of what, when,
and where self-archiving is allowed. Scientometrics, 99(2), 475-494.
Laakso, M., Björk, B. (2012). Anatomy of open access publishing: a study of longitudinal development
and internal structure. BMC Medicine10(124). https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-10-124
McCabe, M. J., & Snyder, C. M. (2015). Does online availability increase citations? Theory andevidence from a panel of economics and business journals. Review of Economics and Statistics,
97(1), 144-165.
McKinnon, A. (2013). Starry-Eyed: Journal Rankings and the Future of Logistics Research.
International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 43(1), 6-17.
https://doi.org/10.1108/09600031311293228

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Mueller-Langer, F., & Watt, R. (2014). How Many More Cites is a $3000 Open Access Fee Buying
You? Empirical Evidence from a Natural Experiment. Economic Inquiry, 56(2), 931-954.
Page,

B. (2019). Elsevier records 2% lifts in revenue and profits. Bookseller.
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/elsevier-records-2-lifts-revenue-and-profits-960016

Prosser, D. C. (2003). From here to there: a proposed mechanism for transforming journals from closed
to open access. Learned publishing, 16(3), 163-166.
Rasmussen, E., & Lamm, F. (1998). An Introduction to Employment Relations in New Zealand.
Auckland, Longman Paul.
Rasmussen, E., Williamson, D., & Lamm, F. Developing employment relations teaching in New
Zealand. In B. Pocock, C. Provis, & E. Willis, E. (eds.), 21st Century Work: High Road or Low
Road. Proceedings of the 20th AIRAANZ Conference Volume 1 (pp. 447-456). AIRAANZ.
Sample, I. (2012, April 12). Harvard University says it Can’t Afford Journal Publishers’ Prices. The
Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journalpublishers-prices
Suber, P. (2015). Open Access Overview: Focusing on open access to peer-reviewed research articles
and their preprints. Earlham College. https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm

Wien, C. & Dorch, B.F. (2019). Vi hælder mange hundred millioner skattekroner ned i lommerne påvirksomheder, der er svimlende rige. Politiken, p. 5, July.
Zhang, L., & Watson, E. M. (2017). Measuring the impact of gold and green open access. The Journalof Academic Librarianship, 43(4), 337-345.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 11-31

Organisational-Based Self-Esteem, Meaningful Work, and Creativity
Behaviours: A Moderated Mediation Model with Supervisor Support
AZKA GHAFOOR* and JARROD HAAR**
Abstract
Creativity behaviours can be fundamental to ongoing organisational success, but less is known aroundeffects from combination of factors. We test organisational-based self-esteem (OBSE) on creativity
behaviours and meaningful work as a mediator and perceived supervisor support as a moderator. Underconservation of resource theory, we expect the combined influence of all these factors will promotecreativity behaviours, whereas, under behavioural plasticity theory, we expect the external factor(perceived supervisor support) to be especially advantageous only to employees with low OBSE only.
We then test a moderated mediation model to determine a potential boundary condition using a sample
of 505 New Zealand employees. We find that OBSE influences creativity behaviours and meaningful
work, and that meaningful work is also related to creativity behaviours and fully mediates the influenceof OBSE. Further, perceived supervisor support interacts significantly with OBSE towards meaningful
work and creativity behaviours, indicating greater outcomes when support and OBSE are high. We
also find a significant moderated mediated effect, highlighting the boundary condition whereby theindirect effect of OBSE on creativity behaviours (through meaningful work) increases as support
strengthens. Our findings challenge OBSE related theories around the influence of external factor(perceived supervisor support) on OBSE, and we discuss our findings in light of these effects.
Keywords: creativity behaviour; organisational-based self-esteem; perceived supervisor support;
meaningful work; moderated mediation.

Introduction
Workforce changes, including global competition and job restructuring, have highlighted the challenge
for businesses and the importance of maximising employee creativity (Shalley et al., 2009). Due to thechanging nature of business, organisations need creativity to maintain a competitive edge (Ekrot et al.,2016), whether to succeed (Yuan & Woodman, 2010) or survive (Amabile et al., 1996). Creativity atwork is the development of novel ideas, process, and services (Amabile, 1988), and innovation is theimplementation of ideas and process that can be materialised into organisational success (Shalley etal., 2004). Current research has highlighted numerous factors (e.g., Amabile et al., 1996; Shalley etal., 2004; Ghafoor & Haar, 2020) although evidence from New Zealand is scant. Further, theexploration of boundary conditions, whereby factors might attenuate existing relationships (Wayne etal., 2017) is extremely limited.
The present study seeks to provide insights into employee creativity behaviours in the New Zealandcontext, and uses organisational-based self-esteem (OBSE) as our key focal construct, because weunderstand stronger self-esteem at work is positively linked to work outcomes (Bowling et al., 2010).
We make several theoretical contributions by testing a number of related and interwoven theoretical*

Azka Ghafoor, Management Department, AUT
Prof Jarrod Haar, Management Department, AUT, jarrod.haar@aut.ac.nz**

11New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 11-31
approaches to understanding employee behaviours, to better comprehend the way personal and work
factors can influence creativity behaviours. We also test the interaction between factors to gain deeper
understanding of the process and shed theoretical insights. Finally, by exploring moderated mediation,
we provide more understanding of these factors in combination, to unveil boundary conditions
whereby we can better understand creativity behaviours.

Theoretical Perspectives
Conservation of Resource Theory
Positive organisational attitudes and behaviours can elicit creativity. For instance, individual creativity
is influenced by both internal motivation and external support provided by the organisation, teams andpeers (Staw, 1995). Recently, research evidence from Chang and Teng (2017) shows that both intrinsic
and extrinsic motivators promotes individuals to be more creative. Following the work of Hackman
and Oldham (1980), suggesting that creativity and innovation are derived by integrating individual
traits and work design components, recently research has explored how such components play a rolein the development of creative ideas and outcomes. For instance, Anderson et al., (2014) highlighted
the individual, team and organisational level factors, including values, thinking, self-concepts andleadership as key determinants of creativity. Hence, it is important to consider the influence of thesefactors which aligns with Conservation of Resource Theory, suggesting that individuals gain, retainand conserve their resources to manage stress and demands from the environment, where resources
can be anything that adds value to the individual’s achievement of goals (Hobfoll et al., 2018) or to becreative.
We explore OBSE, as our key resource (a psychological factor) under conservation of resource theory
towards creativity behaviours. Moreover, beyond studying perceived supervisor support as a potential
moderator, the influence of OBSE in the presence of an external factor like perceived supervisor
support has been identified (Pierce & Gardner, 2004) as triggering special effects, potentially different
from the conservation of resource theory. Hence, we rely on Behavioural Plasticity Theory as a theory
to determine the effect of perceived supervisor support on the relationship between OBSE towards
creativity behaviours, and how plasticity towards creativity behaviours translates in the presence ofperceived supervisor support. Pierce and Gardner (2004) suggested that work environment conditions(here, perceived supervisor support) might interact with OBSE due to Behavioural Plasticity Theory,
which refers to the extent to which an employee is influenced by external factors (Brockner, 1988).
Under this theory, employees are expected to react to external cues differently (Pierce & Gardner,2004), with low OBSE employees reacting stronger to external factors (e.g., perceived supervisor
support) than high OBSE workers. This is because low OBSE workers are behaviourally reactive(plastic), due to being more compliant from external cues (Brockner, 1988), with Pierce and Gardner(2004) stating low OBSE employees “seek out and respond to events in their environment” (p. 595).
Additionally, as creativity is influenced by these factors in combination, the resource caravan effectunder conservation of resource theory comes in effect, suggesting that resources flourish and grow in
supportive ecological environment where they prevail in groups and, hence, provide individuals withmore resources to achieve their goals (Hobfoll, 2011; Hobfoll et al., 2018). Beyond this theory, we
also utilise Organisational Support Theory, which Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, and Sowa
(1986) define as employees developing global beliefs regarding the extent to which an organisation or
supervisor values their contributions, and they respond accordingly. Hence, perceived supervisor
support acts as a support factor under organisational support theory and this acts as a resource gain
under the conservation of resource theory. Specifically, the gain paradox where resource gain becomes
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important in the face of high demands (Hobfoll et al., 2018). We suggest that employees who receive
more support from their supervisors feel greater felt obligation and, thus, reciprocate with stronger
creativity behaviours (Haar & Spell, 2004).
Creativity Behaviours and OBSE
Many determinants of creativity behaviours have been explored, with Anderson et al. (2014),
highlighting multiple individual-level factors, including traits, thinking styles, identity, knowledge,
abilities, and psychological states. Hackman and Oldham (1980) suggested that creativity can beachieved by mixing the traits of the employee with work design components of the organisation. Traits
can include individual personality types (Madjar et al., 2002), knowledge and abilities (Amabile et al.,1996) and motivation (Grant & Berry, 2011). However, the links between self-esteem at work andcreativity behaviours are under-explored, despite links between creativity and traits, such as selfesteem (Anderson et al., 2014), and we suggest OBSE deserves greater exploration.
OBSE is defined as “the degree to which organisational members believe that they can satisfy theirneeds by participating in roles within the context of an organisation” (Pierce et al., p. 625). OBSE is
considered the measure of personal assessment and development, meaning how people assess theirown abilities and approve or disapprove their own position with their work (Pierce et al., 1989). Haar
and Brougham (2016), stating that “research has concluded that OBSE shapes employee attitudes,
motivations, and behaviours” (p. 722) and high OBSE, suggests that the employees are valued by theorganisation and, thus, become motivated to work harder and more effectively (Pierce et al., 1989).
OBSE is linked with organisational outcomes and employee behaviours (Pierce & Gardner, 2004),
including positively linked to job performance and organisation citizenship behaviours (OCBs)(Gardner & Pierce, 1998; Pierce et al., 1993; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004), which are referred to as
unrewarded discretionary behaviours that help organisations function properly (Organ, 1988). Overall,there is strong meta-analytic support for OBSE, with Bowling et al. (2010) finding that OBSE yieldedstronger relationships with organisational and work outcomes than general self-esteem. Despite thisstrong performance link, there is a lack of exploration towards creativity behaviours, which we develop
next.
Employees with high OBSE have a positive attitude towards their goals and consider themselves animportant resource for the organisation, improving their sense of citizenship (Rank et al., 2009).
Gardner et al., (2015) found a positive link between OBSE and performance, and Haar and Brougham(2016) found positive links between OBSE and OCBs. Combined, these highlighted the links between
OBSE and positive work behaviours. Such linkages are expected because high OBSE should lead togreater enthusiasm towards idea generation and creativity related training (Kock et al., 2015), and thegeneration of creative solutions (Vermunt et al., 2001). This is because higher OBSE employees“reciprocate by making positive, proactive contributions to the organization” (Van Dyne & Pierce,
2004, p. 446). This aligns with Self-Consistency Theory (Korman, 1971), where high OBSE employees
eagerly “maintain cognitive consistency with their high self-evaluations” (Ferris et al., 2010, p. 562).
Furthermore, aligned with conservation of resource theory, high OBSE should act as additional
individual resources which can promote creativity behaviours and, in combination with perceived
supervisor support under the resource caravan effect (Hobfoll, 2011), provide opportunities to gain
supplementary resources leading to creative outcomes.
Ultimately, employees with high OBSE are expected to be cognitively creative and develop creativeideas and solutions in order to achieve their targets. This is because in high OBSE employees, it createsinternal motivation and pressure on employee creativity behaviours and means higher self-expectation
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towards creativity behaviours and performance. Ekrot et al. (2016) explained that employees areencouraged to “behave in concordance with their high self-expectations by producing innovative ideasthat are worth being communicated to peers and superiors” (p. 4). High OBSE employees target theirgoals seriously as they have higher self-identity leading to the urge to have better results or success(Rank et al., 2009). Combined, we expect high OBSE to positively influence creativity behaviours.
Chen and Aryee (2007) noted that creativity behaviours have not been previously examined with
OBSE, hypothesising that high OBSE employees “will engage in behavior, possess attitudes, andchoose roles that reinforce their positive self-cognition” (p. 228). They found strong support for OBSE
positively influencing innovation behaviour, which has subsequently been replicated (Lee & Hyun,
2016), although not in New Zealand. Overall, we expect employees with high OBSE to respond to thetrust and esteem placed in them by their organisation by engaging in greater creativity behaviours. We
posit the following:
Hypothesis 1. OBSE is positively related to creativity behaviours.
Meaningful Work
Our second factor is meaningful work, defined by Fairlie (2011) as “job and other workplacecharacteristics that facilitate the attainment or maintenance of one or more dimensions of meaning” (p.
510). Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) suggested that employees create meaningful work through job
behaviours that improve feelings of purpose and meaning. Hence, being creative and finding
meaningful work appear entwined. Meaningful work also aligns with OBSE, with Spreitzer (1995)
noting that “meaning is the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation to an individual’s own
ideals or standards. Meaning involves a fit between the requirements of a work role and beliefs, values,
and behaviors” (p. 1443). Meaningful work allows employees to develop a strong sense of dignity,
autonomy, and sense of freedom to achieve targets (Yeoman, 2014). In terms of its antecedents,
meaningful work is influenced by the goals, perception, and purpose (Fairlie, 2011), as well as fairness,leadership, and worthy work (Lips-Wiersma, Haar, & Wright, 2020). Hence, OBSE is expected toinfluence meaningful work, although the links towards greater creativity behaviours remain underexplored.
Meaningful work has been positively related to important work outcomes including satisfaction(Spreitzer, 1995), and motivation and engagement (Lips-Wiersma & Wright, 2012). Overall, there isempirical evidence linking meaningful work to positive work attitudes and behaviours. We expect
meaningful work will lead to higher creativity behaviours as employees working on tasks with moremeaning are likely to be more motivated and inspired to be more creative. Further, given the
motivational alignment between meaningful work and creativity behaviours and the links between
OBSE as an individual motivator, we argue that meaningful work will mediate the influence of OBSE
on creativity behaviours. We posit the following:
Hypothesis 2. OBSE is positively related to meaningful work.
Hypothesis 3. Meaningful work is positively related to creativity behaviours.
Hypothesis 4. Meaningful work will mediate the influence of OBSE on creativity behaviours.
Perceived Supervisor Support
Organisational support theory focusses either at the organisational or supervisor level, with Rhoades
and Eisenberger (2002) noting that with perceived supervisor support, employees “develop generalviews concerning the degree to which supervisors’ value their contributions” (p. 700). Overall, these
support perceptions have meta-analytic support that greater support perceptions lead to stronger
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attitudes and behaviours (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). We specifically explore perceived supervisor
support as a moderator, because Zhou and Shalley (2011) highlighted the need to examine interaction
effects within creativity behaviours.
We suggest employees may collaborate and develop ideas by sharing and collecting information fromothers, and specifically their supervisor. Environmental factors can impact and promote individuals tofind better solutions (Ekrot et al., 2016) and perceived supervisor support also captures supervisor
feedback, with Shanock and Eisenberger (2006) highlighting that supervisors can provide
individualised treatments to subordinates, espcially “informal feedback concerning job performance”(p. 689). Haar (2006) noted that employees with higher support perceptions engage in more positive
behaviours due to reciprocity (via felt obligations) under organisational support theory. Thus, asupervisor who is especially supportive and helpful is likely to receive greater creativity behaviours
from employees due to triggering felt obligations under support theory, and this aligns with empiricalsupport towards performance (e.g., Shanock & Eisenberger, 2006; DeConinck & Johnson, 2009).
Under conservation of resource theory, we expect the combined effect of perceived supervisor support,
OBSE and meaningful work to be fruitful towards creativity behaviours under the resource caravan
effect (Hobfoll, 2011). However, under behavioural plasticity theory, we expect a supportive
supervisor to inspire greater creativity behaviours when subordinates have low OBSE, because suchindividuals are more reactive to the attention and feedback of the supervisor. Pierce et al (1989) statedthat “experiences within an organization will shape OBSE which will also affect organization related
behaviors and attitudes” (p. 626), highlighting the importance of including perceived supervisor
support in combination with OBSE. Thus, OBSE concentrates on a person’s own interest and beliefs
in the context of the organisational role assigned to them. High OBSE employees are more confident
in their ability and, thus, are less likely to react to organisational cues. Interactions have been foundwith OBSE on work and organisational factors, including performance (Hui & Lee, 2000; Pierce etal., 1993), with findings generally showing major change (specifically performance improvements) for
low OBSE workers, with little change for high OBSE workers. Consequently, we expect perceived
supervisor support to interact with OBSE, enhancing the positive influence more strongly for low
OBSE employees only, resulting in higher meaningful work and higher creativity behaviours. We,
therefore, posit:
Hypothesis 5. Perceived supervisor support will interact with OBSE towards (a) meaningful workand (b) creativity behaviours, such that high perceived supervisor support will have enhanced
outcomes but only for low OBSE employees.
Perceived supervisor support as a Boundary Condition
Finally, we examine perceived supervisor support as a boundary condition whereby it might attenuate
relationships. Thus, we explore perceived supervisor support as moderating the indirect effect of OBSE
on creativity behaviours through meaningful work, thus testing a moderated mediation effect, which
Hayes (2018) defines as “an analytical strategy focused on quantifying the boundary conditions ofmechanisms and testing hypotheses about the contingent nature of processes, meaning whether“mediation is moderated” (p. 5). Specifically, the moderated mediation approach can analytically“address whether an indirect effect (mediation) is dependent on another variable (moderation)” (Hayes,
2018, p. 5). Hence, the indirect effect of OBSE on creativity behaviours through meaningful work is
expected to differ at various levels of perceived supervisor support. Aligned with behavioural plasticity
theory, we expect the indirect effect of OBSE to be most beneficial at low levels of perceived
supervisor support, with the indirect effect weakening as perceived supervisor support increases. Thus,

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we expect perceived supervisor support to act as a boundary condition. This leads to our final
hypothesis:
Hypothesis 6: The indirect relationship between OBSE and creativity behaviours via meaningful
work is moderated by perceived supervisor support, such that the indirect relationship becomesstronger as perceived supervisor support becomes weaker (moderated mediation).
Our study model is shown in Figure 1.

Methods
Participants and Sample
A total of 505 participants were recruited in 2017 via a Qualtrics survey panel of New Zealandemployees. Respondents had to be working at least 20 hours a week and be aged 18 years and over, inorder to ensure enough work experience. Participants are anonymous and confidential, and the system
ensures there are no multiple respondents and removes respondents who answer too quick/slow. Thismethodology has yielded positive samples (e.g., Haar et al., 2018) with data being comparable to othernon-panel samples (Ng et al., 2019). A recent meta-analysis by Walter, Seibert, Goering, and O’Boyle(2019) found no significant differences between data sourced conventionally and data from panels like
Qualtrics.
Respondents were evenly split by gender (52 per cent women), with average age of 39.7 years(SD=13.8), and the majority being married (67 per cent). Average tenure was 7.8 years and work hours
39.1 per week. Education was well spread: 23 per cent high school, 30 per cent technical qualification,
33 per cent university degree, and 14 per cent postgraduate qualification in education. By sector, themajority were from the private sector (73 per cent), followed by the public sector (21 per cent) and
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not-for-profit sector (six per cent). Statistics New Zealand (2015) reports, from the 2013 Census, that79 per cent of the New Zealand population has higher education (greater than high school), which does
equate well with our data (77 per cent). However, aligned with other New Zealand studies (e.g., Haar
& Brougham, 2016), our sample does have higher university qualified respondents. Statistics New
Zealand (2017) report 51.2 per cent women in the workforce compared to men, and this also equates
well with our sample (52 per cent).
Measures
Creativity behaviours were measured with the three-items by Shimazu et al., (2015), coded 1=not at
all characteristic of me, 5=very characteristic of me. A sample item is “I am a good source of creative
work ideas” (α= .86).
Perceived supervisor support was measured using three items from Eisenberger et al., (2002), coded
1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree. A sample item is “my supervisor is willing to extend themselvesin order to help me perform my job to the best of my ability” (α= .88).
OBSE was measured using items by Pierce et al. (1989), coded 1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree,using the 5-item short measure (Scott et al., 2008). A sample item is “I am trusted around here” (α=.92).
Meaningful work was measured using the three-item construct by Spreitzer (1995), coded 1=strongly
disagree, 5= strongly agree. A sample item is “The work I do on this job is meaningful to me” (α=.95).
We control for a range of factors likely to influence creativity beyond our main factors that are likely
to be a necessary work condition, including Hours Worked (total/week) as Amabile et al., (2002) notethat hours worked can be related to creativity and Job Repetition, from Brougham and Haar (2017),
coded 1==strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree, item is “My work is highly repetitive”. We argue thathigh repetition jobs will be negatively related to creativity behaviours. Finally, we controlled forPrivate Sector (1=private sector, 0=non-private sector), due to underperformance in the sector(Robertson & Seneviratne, 1995) and Tenure (years), due to meta-analysis around its links to positive
innovation behaviours (Ng & Feldman, 2013).
Measurement Models
We conducted a CFA in AMOS version 25, following Williams, Vandenberg, and Edwards (2009)
goodness-of-fit indices and thresholds: (1) the comparative fit index (CFI ≥.95), (2) the root-meansquare error of approximation (RMSEA ≤.08), and (3) the standardised root mean residual (SRMR≤.10). The hypothesised measurement model and two alternative models are shown in Table 1.

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Overall, the hypothesised measurement model was the best fit for the data, with alternative
measurement constructs resulting in poorer fit (Hair et al., 2010).
Analysis
Hypotheses 1-5 were tested using SEM in IBM AMOS version 25. We tested moderation and,following potential issues of multicollinearity in SEM (Haar et al., 2014), we entered the single-item
interaction term (already calculated) into our model to provide the interaction calculation (as per
Wayne et al., 2017). We conducted the moderated mediation analysis (Hypothesis 6) in PROCESS 3.4(in IBM SPSS version 25) per Hayes (2018), at the 95 per cent confidence interval and bootstrappingat 5,000, providing an Index of Moderated Mediation (a statistical test of moderated mediation effects).
PROCESS is a macron that runs in IBM SPSS and is specifically designed to run complex statisticalanalyses, including moderation, mediation, and moderated mediation. Calculation of skewness andkurtosis statistics indicated that all our study variables were normally distributed within acceptable
limits (Hair et al., 2010).

Results
Descriptive statistics for the study variables are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 shows that creativity behaviour is significantly correlated with perceived supervisor support(r= .15, p<.01), OBSE (r= .17, p<.01), meaningful work (r= .29, p< .01), as well as the control variables
tenure (r= .12, p< .05), hours worked (r= .12, p< .01) and job repetition (r= -.09, p< .05). Perceived
supervisor support is significantly correlated with OBSE (r= .66, p<.01) and meaningful work (r= .31,
p< .01), while OBSE and meaningful work correlate with each other significantly (r= .37, p< .01).
Finally, tenure correlates significantly with meaningful work (r= .15, p< .01).
Structural Models
We tested three models: (1) a direct effects model (OBSE to all outcomes), (2) a full mediation model:
OBSE→ meaningful work → creativity behaviours and (3) a partial mediation model, where OBSE
predicts meaningful work and creativity behaviours and meaningful work predicts creativity
behaviours. Overall, the partial mediation (model 3) is superior to the other models (both p< .001). We
then added the interaction term into the partial mediation model, and that structural model was robust
18New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 11-31
and met minimum goodness-of-fit indexes noted above (Williams et al., 2009): 2(df)= 262.3 (141),
CFI=.98, RMSEA=.04, and SRMR=.03.
The path analysis results (unstandardised regression coefficients) are presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2 shows the results of model 2 (partial mediation) as this is the best fit to the data. Figure 2 also
shows that OBSE is significantly related to creativity behaviours and meaningful work; and when
meaningful work predicts creativity behaviours in model 3, it is significant, and fully mediates theinfluence of OBSE towards creativity behaviours. Overall, these findings provide support for all
Hypotheses one to four, including mediating effects of meaningful work. The interaction effects wereboth supported, with significant interactions between perceived supervisor support and OBSE towards
meaningful work and creativity behaviours. Overall, the models account for modest amounts ofvariance towards creativity behaviours (20 per cent) and meaningful work (28 per cent). The overallvariance accounted towards creativity behaviours aligns well with the works of Zacher and Wilden(2014) for innovation behaviours (13 per cent), and Furnham et al., (2008) for self-rated creativity (17per cent).

We graph the interactions to illustrate the two-way interactions (Figures 3 and 4).

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Figure 3. Interaction of OBSE x Perceived supervisor support (PSS) with Meaningful work as the Dependent Variable.

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Figure 4. Interaction of OBSE x Perceived supervisor support (PSS) with Creativity Behaviours as the Dependent Variable.

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The interactions towards meaningful work (Figure 3) and creativity behaviours (Figure 4) show
similar effects: at low levels of OBSE, those with high perceived supervisor support reporthigher outcomes (meaningful work and creativity behaviours), albeit at a small level ofdifference. However, the enhancement benefits of perceived supervisor support are shown athigh levels of OBSE, where the highest levels of meaningful work and creativity behaviours
are reported. However, these effects are counter to the anticipated behavioural plasticity theory
effects, instead showing a more traditional intensification (beneficial) effect. Hence, we findno support for Hypothesis 5.
The results of the index of moderated mediation were found to be significant (Index= .02 (.01),
p= .021 [LL= .01, UL= .05]). According to Hayes (2018), this is interpreted as meaning theindirect effect of OBSE on creativity behaviours (through meaningful work) differs between
respondents’ perceived supervisor support. We present the graphed interactions to illustratethese effects in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Indirect Effects of OBSE on Creativity Behaviours Through Meaningful work
(MFW) conditional on Perceived supervisor support (PSS).

We follow Wayne et al. (2017) to probe the conditional indirect effect by examining themagnitude and significance of the indirect effect of OBSE on creativity behaviours throughmeaningful work at various levels of perceived supervisor support. Figure 4 shows thesignificant indirect effect of OBSE→ meaningful work →creativity behaviours, conditional on
the effects of perceived supervisor support (at -2SD, mean, and +2SD). We find, for employees
reporting low levels of perceived supervisor support, the effect of OBSE on creativity
behaviours, vis-à-vis meaningful work, was significant, positive and small (estimate = .037, p=.007; LLCI = .01; ULCI = .08). At the average levels of perceived supervisor support, theeffects was significant, positive and stronger (estimate = .057, p= .002; LLCI = .02; ULCI =.10), and stronger still at high levels (+2SD) of perceived supervisor support (estimate = .077,
p= .001; LLCI = .03; ULCI = .14). This shows that low levels of perceived supervisor support
are associated with a weaker positive indirect effect from OBSE to creativity behaviours
through meaningful work compared to those with higher levels of perceived supervisor support.
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While the indirect effect is significant across the full 95 per cent confidence intervals, it showsthat the benefits of perceived supervisor support are stronger and enhanced when perceived
supervisor support is higher, which is counter to our argument and does not support Hypothesis
6.

Discussion
The present study focussed on the resource caravan effect under conservation of resources
theory to determine the combined influence of multiple factors to provide a comprehensive
approach to understanding employee creativity behaviours. Research to date tends to focus on
individual factors – such as personality – but fails to encompass additional factors. We foundthat OBSE plays an important role in shaping creativity behaviours and, thus, replicated a small
number of studies (Chen & Aryee, 2007; Lee & Hyun, 2016) with a New Zealand sample.
However, we extended the existing literature by finding that OBSE leads to meaningful work,
which, in turn, influences creativity behaviours, and fully mediates the influence of OBSE.
These OBSE effects reinforce the findings in the OBSE literature around performance ingeneral (Haar & Brougham, 2016; Gardner et al., 2015), but specifically towards creativity
behaviours, and we extended understanding by showing that meaningful work is the key. While
researchers have shown that meaningful work is important towards many important employee
outcomes (Spreitzer, 1995; Lips-Wiersma & Wright, 2012), our finding towards creativity
behaviours also extends this literature.
In addition, the present study explored perceived supervisor support as a moderator of OBSE
to better understand the interaction of supervisor support on relationships. This approach waswell supported, with perceived supervisor support being found to play an important role,leading to greater meaningful work and creativity behaviours when OBSE is high. Thishighlights the importance of perceived supervisor support where employees develop
perceptions of how their supervisors’ value their contributions (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002),
and employees reciprocate with greater attitudes and behaviours. These effects replicate theimportance of perceived supervisor support on performance (Eisenberger et al., 2002),
including moderating effects (Kim et al., 2015). These significant moderating effects also
reinforce Anderson and colleagues’ (2014) calls for testing multiple factors; and our findings
reinforce the additional benefits that supervisor support might play (Kim et al., 2015).
Importantly, these findings highlight the benefits of exploring moderators with OBSE, andhere, we find that this leads to greater meaningful work and creativity behaviours.
Despite the positive effects found, our moderating effects do challenge the notion of
behavioural plasticity theory (Brockner, 1988), where typical interaction effects oforganisational factors with OBSE are expected to be influential on employees with low (butnot high) OBSE (Pierce & Gardner, 2004). One explanation for this unexpected effect might
be due to using perceived supervisor support as a moderator. It might be that support
perceptions under organisational support theory elicits stronger and more affirmative reactions
from employees, rather the typical effects under behaviour plasticity theory. Chen and Aryee(2007) suggest that, due to the potential risk taking with creativity behaviours, there may be aneed for greater organisational sponsorship, and that employees with high OBSE “will be more
willing to take risks and thereby will engage more in innovative behavior” (p. 229). This might
explain why perceived supervisor support positively influences high OBSE, leading to greater
creativity behaviours. This explanation might also hold towards the similar positive effect onmeaningful work and signifies the importance of the resource caravan effect (Hobfoll, 2011).
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These effects warrant further exploration of perceived supervisor support interacting with
OBSE, and we encourage researchers to give this more attention.
Finally, our moderated mediation effect indicated that the greatest effect of OBSE are at highlevels of perceived supervisor support, although there was still a positive effect at low
perceived supervisor support, albeit with a weaker beneficial effect. We find that perceived
supervisor support appears to be a key boundary condition for explaining the relationships
between OBSE, meaningful work, and creativity behaviours. This boundary condition effectfurther highlights how powerful the effects of perceived supervisor support are on these
relationships and reiterates the value of including perceived supervisor support as a moderator
when testing such relationships. The finding suggests that, in combination with high OBSE,
greater support perceptions might highlight an intensification effect whereby organisational
support theory exerts a greater influence on outcomes than behaviour plasticity theory. It might
be that, in some circumstances, the expected effects under behaviour plasticity theory might bechallenged and this study provides the first evidence. Further testing of these effects is
encouraged.
Implications
The implications for organisations involve highlighting the importance that supervisor support
plays in shaping important job attitudes and behaviours, especially for workers with high selfesteem from their work. Hence, providing training for supervisors to make them more focussed
and attentive to their workers – and provide constructive feedback – is likely to help trigger
idea generation and innovation, which become pillars of creativity and, ultimately,organisational performance. Meta-analysis on OBSE literature (Bowling et al., 2010)highlighted the importance of job complexity, autonomy, and leadership, as well as otherfactors of support and pay. Thus, HR departments need to understand that a broad number offactors can positively shape OBSE and creativity behaviours, and, therefore, hiring job
candidates with high OBSE may not be sufficient – additional workplace factors supporting
employees and their creativity is needed.
For researchers, our findings around moderating effects of perceived supervisor support
challenge behavioural plasticity theory (Brockner, 1988), where it was expected that employeeswith low OBSE would react more purposefully to external cues (perceived supervisor support),
but this was not supported. Given our findings are counter to the expected effects, we urge
researchers to examine support perceptions – both supervisor and at the organisational level(Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002) – to determine whether these counter effects hold with otherforms of support. If so, this might suggest that organisational support theory could triump the
expected effects of behavioural plasticity theory, or at least highlight that different factors
might trigger different effects. Importantly, our findings do challenge typical interaction effects
found in the OBSE literature (e.g., Pierce et al., 1993) and might highlight the importance ofreciprocity, whereby high OBSE employees react more positively to a supportive supervisor.
We encourage further replication of these effects and perhaps extensions into support at theorganisational-level, to capture global perception of support.
Future research might explore other factors, such as leadership (e.g., ethical leadership) to
determine whether its influence on OBSE follows the expected effects under behaviouralplasticity and conservation of reosurce theories. Thus, it might be that it is the immediate
supportive nature of leaders – and not some other distinct form of leadership behaviour (e.g.,
ethical, transformational) – that triggers intensification effects for high OBSE employees.
24New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations 44(3): 11-31
Furthermore, greater exploration of moderated mediation effects is encouraged to provide
insights around boundary conditions.
Limitations
Limitations of the present study include cross-sectional data although the use of higher-levelstatistical analysis (CFA and SEM) minimises the potential of common method variance(CMV) (Haar et al., 2014). In addition, towards CMV, Evans (1985) asserts that moderation
effects are less likely to be found if CMV is an issue, which also alludes to CMV not being an
issue. Finally, we acknowledge that the data was gathered via a panel, and while suchapproaches appear to produce findings that aligns similarly with data from conventional
methods (e.g., Ng et al., 2019), some critics (e.g., Yang et al., 2010) have highlighted potential
issues with panel data. In response to these issues, we followed the recommendations of
Podsakoff et al., (2003), and undertook the Lindell and Whitney (2001) procedure. This
involved conducting a partial correlation while controlling for a construct unrelated to therelationships studied (career planning, 3-items by Gould, 1979, sample item “My career
objectives are not clear”, α= .76). This analysis showed no change on the strength ofcorrelations, indicating CMV is not likely to be evident (as per Haar & Spell, 2009). Finally,
our large sample and broad range of New Zealand respondents across industries andprofessions does provide confidence in the findings.

Conclusion
The present study contributes to the understanding of how OBSE interacts with perceived
supervisor support, and how these factors influence creativity behaviours through meaningful
work as a mediator. Given the links between employee creativity and organisational success,we suggest these findings highlight some ways that organisations can encourage greater
employee creativity behaviours. Our study also improves our understanding of the process ofcreativity behaviours through finding mediating effects (meaningful work) and moderating
effects from perceived supervisor support. The moderated mediation effects further highlighted
the value of perceived supervisor support as a boundary condition and highlights the potential
complex interplay between factors to achieve superior creativity. Finally, our findings
challenge an established theory around the role of external factors on OBSE, which encourages
further testing of interaction effects. Overall, the present study offers insights into how wemight understand the process towards realising greater creativity behaviours in organisations
by considering a combination of factors.

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31

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44

Commentary: Labour market change and employee protection in
New Zealand in light of the ‘future of work’ debate
MICHAEL FLETCHER* and ERLING RASMUSSEN**
Abstract
Much has been written internationally about the likely labour market impacts of the so-called‘future of work’ or the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ (Schwab, 2016). In New Zealand, the‘future of work’ has also attracted considerable academic, political and public commentary.
This commentary seeks to set some of the issues around technological change and employee
protections in context, by drawing on evidence from the recent past, current New Zealand dataon temporary and casualised employment and on a few examples from the international
literature. We argue that two separate sets of issues are often conflated in the New Zealanddiscussions. Both have important employment protection implications, but they differ
significantly in the policy responses needed. While it is too soon to be sure, it is also likely thatthey differ in scale. One set of issues surrounds the way people work and, in particular,
questions around casualisation, precarious employment, and the rise of the ‘gig economy’. The
other set of issues concerns job losses, technological redundancy and structural labour market
change. Our analysis of the broad data presented in the commentary suggests that casualised
employment has not yet increased significantly, although we do not rule out the possibility that
it will do so in the future. Reviewing the outcomes of the large scale, structural labour market
change during the 1980s and 1990s, we argue that policy needs to learn from the failings ofthat period to minimise the long-term negative social and economic consequences in whichthose changes resulted.
Keywords: New Zealand; Future of work; Employment relations; Employee protection;
Precarious employment; Labour market casualisation; Workplace technological change.

Introduction
It has become a commonplace notion that new technologies, especially in the form of robotics
and machine learning, are developing so rapidly and substantially that a large amount of thework now done by people will soon be able to be performed by machines. The frequently citedstudy by Frey and Osbourne (2013) concluded that the jobs of 47 per cent of all current US
employees could be carried out by machines and computers within the next 20 years.
Doomsday labour market predictions are not new, of course. A slew of books and articles sincethe 1990s predicted some version of the ‘end of work’ (Rifkin, 1995) or the ‘de-jobbed worldof work’ (Bridges, 2005). Despite those forecasts not coming to pass, many commentators
argue that the situation is different this time and that the world is now entering a ‘fourthindustrial revolution’ involving large-scale disruptions and a ‘time of great promise and great
peril’ (Schwab, 2016, p2).

*

Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, School of Government, Victoria
University of Wellington**
Professor of Work and Employment, Department of Management, Auckland University of Technology

32

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44
In New Zealand, ‘the future of work’ has also been widely discussed (see, for example, New
Zealand Labour Party, 2016). Based on a brief overview of the ‘future of work’ debate, wesuggest that two strands of thinking and research are prominent, and tend to get conflated,
despite relating to different phenomena and having different implications. The first concerns
the nature of work and the way people will earn an income in the future. Drawing on writers,such as Standing (2011; 2014) and, in New Zealand, Groot et al., (2017), this strand focusses
on the increase in contingent forms of employment – temporary employment, contracting, and‘platform’-based work. This leads to concerns about insecurity of income, low-income work,
loss of employment (and other) protections, lack of access to training and career progression(Stewart & Stanford, 2017). Although low-skill, low-earning activities predominate, concerns
about increasing employment precarity extend to other occupations, such as the tertiary
education sector (Bentley et al., 2014; TEU, 2019). The impact of precarity on various groupsof New Zealanders is surveyed in Groot et al., (2017).
The second strand concerns jobs and workers who may be at risk of technological redundancy.
There have been no New Zealand-specific studies of the numbers of jobs likely to be affectedby what Brougham and Haar (2017) call Smart Technology, Artificial Intelligence,
Automation, Robotics and Algorithms (STAARA). However, Arntz et al., (2016), using anactivity-based, more conservative approach than Frey and Osborne (2013), estimated that an
overall figure of nine per cent of jobs across 21 OECD countries, with a range of between six
and 12 percent over the next 10 to 20 years for the countries they studied. Even at the lower
end of that range, technological redundancies of that magnitude, overlaid on top of the usual
dynamism of the labour market, implies considerable adjustment challenges.
The commentary starts with a brief overview of the current economic and labour market
situation in New Zealand where strong economic growth in the post Global Financial Crisis(GFC) has increased employment, decreased unemployment and prompted employer concerns
about skill shortages. However, there are a number of embedded issues, ranging from low pay,gender and ethnicity issues, and long working hours. On that background, statisticalinformation on casualisation is analysed and it is shown that the proportion of part-time
employed and self-employed, in respect of total employed, has been fairly constant since 1990.
The percentage of temporary employed in terms of total employed has also been broadly stablearound 10 per cent since the start of official statistics in 2008.
In this recent historical labour market context, the commentary overviews briefly the past andrecent claims about the ‘future of work’ (though this is clearly a part of the commentary where
further literature review and research are necessary). However, we suggest that, while
wholesale de-jobbing is highly unlikely, a more active government policy response is needed,in respect of both casualisation and technological unemployment.

The current economic and labour market situation
The New Zealand economy has experienced relatively strong growth in the post Global
Financial Crisis (GFC) period. Annual GDP growth has averaged close to 3.0 per cent between
2014 and 2018, compared to an OECD average growth rate of 2.3 per cent. As in many
countries, price inflation has been low and was 1.5 per cent for the year to December 2018.
Despite significant rises in government debt during 2008-2014, New Zealand still has arelatively low government debt to GDP ratio of around 20 per cent. (By comparison,
Australia’s debt to GDP ratio is around 40 per cent.)
33

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44

Employment growth has also been strong with an average annual increase of 81,000 people
employed (or over three per cent per annum) between 2013 and 2018. Moreover, 70 per centof the increase is in full-time jobs. Labour force participation is higher than at any point sincethe Household Labour Force Survey began in 1986: 76 per cent for men aged 16 and over and66 per cent for women in December 2018. Unemployment increased sharply at the beginningof the GFC but has since fallen back to 4.5 per cent seasonally adjusted, approximately thesame rate as a decade earlier in December 2008. Thus, the current employment situation is a
far cry from the massive job losses experienced between 1986 and 1991. In fact, many
employers are generally concerned about skill shortages and insufficient labour supply in theimmediate future (MBIE, 2018).
This generally rosy picture hides, however, a number of embedded issues that have showed
little improvement over the cyclical upswing. Real wage growth, especially across the lower
half of the wage distribution, has been weak (Rosenberg, 2017). Low pay remains common,with almost the same proportion of workers paid less than two-thirds of the median wage in2015 as in 2006 (11.1 per cent compared to 12.3 per cent (Cochrane et al., 2018]). The gender
pay gap (12.8 per cent) is also about the same as it was in 2003 (Pacheco et al., 2017). More
broadly, there has been no improvement in income inequality, and poverty and child poverty
indicators show only slight (and mixed) signs of improvement (Perry, 2017).
Unemployment also remains high among some groups. Most notably, unemployment among
Māori and Pacific youth aged 16 - 24 remains at 21.8 per cent and 20.1 per cent, respectively.
The period of strong employment growth has also done little to dent the youth NEET (young
people Not in Employment, Education or Training) rate which has averaged around 12 per centover the 2013 - 2016 period.
While many other OECD countries would envy the headline economic statistics, the embedded
social, infrastructure and employment issues leave no place for complacency. Its context has
been one of benign international trends in, for example, New Zealand’s terms of trade.
However, there have been warnings that New Zealand’s foreign debt has risen to a dangerous
level which makes New Zealand economic activity vulnerable to the risk of adverse global
financial market trends (Fallow, 2019). This could make it harder to make progress on thesepre-existing issues.

Casualisation
Casualisation is usually described in terms of the number of workers on temporary or fixedterm contracts, in part-time employment (especially if they would prefer more hours), or a risein self-employment (often associated with new forms of working). Despite the media and otherdiscussions of ‘the future of work’, the high-level data show no evidence of any increase inthese forms of work in New Zealand. Part-time employees and the self-employed represent nohigher percentage of the total employed in 2017 than they did in 2000 (see Figure 1). Boththese categories of employment showed some proportional increase from the mid-1980s
through to the late-1990s, probably due to the decline in full-time employment during the earlypart of that period. However, that trend has not continued. Among the part-time employees,
approximately one-in-five report wanting to work more hours.

34New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44

Figure 1: Part-time employees and self-employed as a percentage of total employed
30.0%

25.0%

20.0%

Self-Employed

15.0%

Employed Part-Time

10.0%

5.0%

0.0%

1986

1990

1994

1998

2002

2006

2010

2014

Similarly, there is, as yet, no sign of a growth in temporary employment relationships. New
Zealand data on employment by type of employment relationship only goes back to the first
Survey of Working Life in 2008. In 2008, 9.6 per cent of the workforce were employed (intheir main job) in one or other form of temporary employment relationship. That figure rose to
10.9 per cent in the 2012 survey and had fallen slightly to 9.4 per cent by December 2018. The
different forms of temporary employment relationships have also remained more or less stable
over the same period. In December 2018, 4.1 per cent of the workforce were casual workers,
2.1 per cent were on fixed-term contracts, 2.7 per cent were in seasonal employment and 0.4
per cent were temping. Women are somewhat more likely than men to be in temporary
employment relationships: 10.6 per cent compared to 8.2 per cent.
Table 1. The main categories of ‘temporary’ working arrangements as percent of total employed population(main job)1
Types of employment
2008 (Mar qtr)
Casual Work
4.0
Fixed-term agreements
1.9
Temping
0.6
Seasonal employment2
3.2
Total
9.6
Source: Survey of Working Life, Statistics New Zealand.

2012 (Dec qtr)
4.1
2.6
0.7
3.5
10.9

2018 (Dec qtr)
4.1
2.1
0.4
2.7
9.4

Compared to other OECD countries, New Zealand has an above average percentage of parttime employees, an about average proportion of self-employed and a slightly below average
share of workers in temporary employment relationships. A key point, though, is that, across1
2

Note the employed population includes working employers and the self-employed.
Comprises ‘seasonal employee’ and ‘seasonal worker not further defined’.

35New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44
the OECD as a whole, there is no observable rise in casualised employment, at least as far asthese very broad indicators are concerned (see Tables 2 to 4).
Table 2: Part-time employment as a percentage of total employment, selected OECD and EU countries
New ZealandAustralia

2007
21.9
23.7
2008
22.1
23.8
2009
22.4
24.6
2010
21.8
24.8
2011
22.1
24.7
2012
22.3
24.6
2013
21.6
24.9
2014
21.5
25.2
2015
21.3
25.2
2016
21.2
25.9
Source: OECD Labour Force Statistics, 2017

UnitedKingdom
22.9
23.0
23.9
24.6
24.7
25.0
24.6
24.1
24.0
23.8

Denmark

OECD

EU

17.3
17.8
18.8
19.2
19.2
19.4
19.2
19.7
20.0
21.7

15.4
15.6
16.5
16.6
16.8
16.8
17.0
16.9
16.8
16.7

15.8
15.8
16.3
16.6
16.8
17.2
17.4
17.3
17.2
17.0

Table 3: Self-employment as a percentage of total employment, selected OECD and EU countries
New ZealandAustralia

2007
17.2
11.7
2008
17.3
11.5
2009
16.4
11.5
2010
16.2
11.5
2011
16.7
11.1
2012
16.6
10.4
2013
15.4
10.1
2014
15.3
10.2
2015
14.8
10.3
2016
17.9
10.1
Source: OECD Labour Force Statistics, 2017

UnitedKingdom
13.4
13.3
13.6
14.0
14.2
14.6
14.6
15.2
15.0
15.4

Denmark

United States

EU

9.0
8.8
9.3
9.1
9.1
9.1
#N/A
8.9
8.7
9.1

7.2
7.0
7.1
7.0
6.8
6.8
6.6
6.5
6.5
6.4

16.9
16.5
16.6
16.8
16.7
16.7
16.5
16.4
16.1
15.8

Table 4: Temporary employment as a percentage of total employment, selected OECD and EU countries
New ZealandAustralia
#N/A
2007
6.32
2008
9.6
5.89
#N/A
2009
5.94
#N/A
2010
5.7
#N/A
2011
6
2012
10.4
5.9
#N/A
2013
5.59
#N/A
2014
5.89
#N/A
2015
4.56
#N/A
2016
8.6
Source: OECD Labour Force Statistics, 2017

Great Britain
5.84
5.41
5.64
6.11
6.17
6.34
6.23
6.43
6.2
6.04

Denmark
9.05
8.53
8.71
8.43
8.84
8.54
8.76
8.5
8.63
13.61

OECD
12.21
11.94
11.79
11.84
11.95
11.79
11.09
11.15
11.26
11.24

EU28
14.58
14.16
13.61
13.95
14.06
13.73
13.74
14.05
14.23
14.23

The data on casualisation does, however, need to be treated with some caution: it is also
possible that the high-level data hide a more complex story. The Statistics New Zealand figures
relate to people not jobs, and it is possible that an increasing number of people recorded aspermanent employees are also earning part of their income from secondary work in casualised,
gig-economy jobs. Others doing that type of work may not record themselves as either
employees or self-employed (although the very high labour force participation rate suggests
this is not likely to be a large factor).
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) 2014/15 National Survey of
Employers included questions on ‘non-standard’ employment arrangements (MBIE, 2016).
Their data show that, at the time of the survey, 30 per cent of businesses had at least one
employee on a casual employment agreement, 18 per cent had at least one on a fixed-term
agreement and 13 per cent were using dependent contractor(s). It is important to note that these36

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44
figures are not necessarily at odds with the Statistics New Zealand data from the Household
Labour Force Survey or the Survey of Working Life as the MBIE figures relate to employers
not to workers. Unsurprisingly, firms with more workers were more likely to have one or more
person employed in a non-standard form of employment. Overall, though, the MBIE survey
shows that 70 per cent of businesses were not using casualised employment and 82 per centwere not using fixed-term contracts. Moreover, although the survey question is imperfect, there
is no evidence that those businesses that do use non-standard employment agreements do so
because of technological reasons – fluctuating demand/seasonal work is the most common
reason, followed by the need to cover staff absences or parental leave (MBIE, 2016).

The ‘Future of Work’ in New Zealand, structural labour market change andtechnological redundancies in an historical context
Despite the predictions made in the 1980s and 1990s, as the data above suggest New Zealandhas yet to see any significant impacts from ‘future of work’ changes. The country does haverecent experience of large-scale economic and labour market transformation, albeit policyinduced rather than driven by technological change. During the period from 1986 to 1992,
employment fell by over 100,000 or 7.2 per cent, however, as the economy recovered fromthose changes, full-time permanent employment grew as much as part-time and temporary
employment. The employer response to the economic upswing during the 2000s was primarily
one of high labour-utilisation, fuelled by high immigration, rather than one of investing inlabour-displacing technologies or in changed work and employment practices, or greater useof part-time and casual staff.
One lesson that can be drawn from the 1980s restructuring period is the need for active
government engagement in managing the labour market transitions and in minimising thenegative impacts. The absence of such an approach during that period contributed to the sizeand duration of the impact on unemployment and joblessness. It took until 2004 for theunemployment rate to return to its 1986 level; the Māori and Pacifica unemployment rate arestill higher than they were 30 years ago. The ‘future of work’ impacts on the occupational,
industry and regional structure of labour demand will be different from the changes that
occurred during the 1980s. However, Arntz et al., (2016) estimates of between six and 12 percent of jobs becoming redundant within the next two decades implies the need for a concerted
focus on education, vocational training and retraining policies as well as welfare, redundancy
and income support policies.

Recent employment relations and employee protection policies
Current employment relations and employee protection policies have been heavily influenced
by key decisions made by the National Party since 2007. In 2007, the National Party moved
from abolishing the Employment Relations Act to retaining the Act, subject to a number of
specific changes. This public policy position prompted a number of changes to union andbargaining rights, individual employee rights and decision-making in the Employment
Institutions (for a brief overview, see Table 2 in Foster & Rasmussen, 2017, p.102). Whilemost of these changes had a negative impact on employee protection, there were also a numberof changes with a positive impact. These positive changes ranged from stronger occupational
health and safety (OHS) legislation, enhancing employment standards (including curtailing‘zero hours’ agreements) to a significant pay equity settlement in the age care sector. Although37New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44
there were criticisms from the opposition parties, the changes indicated a significant shift in
the National-led government’s public policy position. We will briefly discuss the changes to
employment standards, including the pay equity settlement in the age care sector before weoverview proposed changes under the current Labour-led government.
Provisions in the Employment Standards Legislation Bill which came into force on 1 April
2016 dealt with various undesirable employer actions such as ‘zero-hours agreements’,unwarranted wage deductions, cancelling at short notice of shifts, and a general ban of
unconscionable employer conduct (see Campbell (2018) for a detailed discussion). The term
‘zero-hours agreements’ is relatively new, but it gained notoriety in New Zealand following asustained union campaign during 2013-2015. It is important to stress that ‘zero-hours
agreements’ is normally regarded as a permanent employment situation where the employee
has agreed to be on-call without being guaranteed a fixed number of hours.3 As such working
arrangements can have very detrimental earning implications for employees, the National-led
government agreed to amendments suggested by the Labour Party that such agreements could
only be implemented for ‘genuine reasons’ and should include a guarantee of minimum hours
and compensation for agreeing to such an arrangement. While the ‘genuine reasons’ stipulation
is similar to the constraints on fixed-term employment agreements, Campbell (2018) has
argued that the legislation provides neither a specific level of minimum hours nor a specificlevel of compensation.
The Court of Appeal decision in December 2014 in the so-called Terranova case on pay equity
proved to be a vital turning point in several respects. The decision upheld a previous
Employment Court decision in favour of the pay equity claim of Kristine Bartlett and her union.
Faced with a possible string of pay equity court cases, the National-led government instituted
a tripartite working group that presented recommendations about pay equity guidelines andwhat negotiation process employers and employees could use to address pay equity claims in
May 2016. As many employers were dependent on government funding and service contracts,
the Government implemented a special $2 billion package in April 2017 that directly targeted
workers in the aged-care sector. This train of events highlighted the return of tripartite
negotiations in respect of dealing with low pay, pay equity and sectoral pay levels (Foster &Rasmussen, 2017; Douglas & Ravenswood, 2018).
It is too early to say with much precision about the new Labour-led government’s overall
employment relations policies, though, there appears to be a stronger approach to both
employment relations, employee protection and preparing for the ‘future of work’ changes.
The Employment Relations Amendment Act 2018 has reversed some of the changes made by
the previous government and enhance employee protection since it came into force in May
2019 (Skilling, 2019).
The changes implemented so far have been described by the President of Council of Trade
Unions (CTU), Richard Wagstaff, as being “largely focused on the margins” and restoring
previous cuts to employee rights (Wagstaff, 2018, p.B4). It could also indicate the CTU’s
disappointment with public policy changes so far, including the continued existence of the ‘90day trial period’ option for small firms with less than 20 employees. Whether this will continue‘Zero-hours agreements’ are quite similar to some casual employment arrangements. For example, theGovernment highlighted in 2006-2008 work arrangements in demand-driven industries where so-called casual
employees worked irregular hours but had a permanent employment relationship with a particular employer.
Thus, a stevedoring employee would work for a certain stevedoring firm but only when there were ships
unloading in the harbour (see Rasmussen, 2009, pp.149-150).
3

38

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44
to be the case will probably depend on changes associated with the response to reports fromvarious Working Groups and the signalled increased legislative protection of contractors,
including addressing the notorious ‘Hobbit’ legislation from 2010 (see Walker & Tipples,
2013; New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations Special Issue 36(3), 2011). The reportfrom the Working Group on ‘Fair Pay Agreements’ was delivered in January 2019. While there
were some critical remarks from employer associations, the report foreshadowed a limited
application (as opposed to being labour-market-wide) and it is still unclear how far theGovernment will take these recommendations. Concerns about the protection of contractors
have featured in Labour Party policies for some time (see Labour’s previous legislative attempt
to enhance contractor protection in Fenton, 2011). It has been suggested by the Governmentthat this could include changes to the ‘Hobbit’ legislation but, again, it is unclear whether there
will be any regulatory changes and, if so, when such changes would be implemented.
There are three other debates which could have significant impact on employment relations,employee protection and how to accommodate labour market changes: a stronger focus on
labour market activation, the various debates of the ‘future of work’, and an overhaul of
vocational education and training structures and approaches (VET). The stronger focus on
labour market activation can be found in the current targeting of reducing young people
categorised as NEET (Not in Employment, Education and Training). While there has been adecline recently, from a peak of 14.1 per cent in December 2009 to 11.9 per cent in December
2018, the numbers of 15 - 24 year old youth categorised as NEETs are still very high,considering the widespread skill shortages in many sectors. The report from the Welfare Expert
Advisory Group, delivered in February 2019, also has a strong focus on labour market
activation, including the recommendation of instituting a stronger employment service to aligndemand and supply of skilled people at a regional level (Welfare Expert Advisory Group,2019). In particular, it highlighted how OECD reports have criticised the limited role of active
labour market policies in New Zealand: “New Zealand is among the countries with the lowest
spending on ALMPs in the OECD, and this spending has been falling for a long time” (Welfare
Expert Advisory Group, p.134; see also OECD, 2017; 2018).
The ‘future of work’ debate has featured strongly, and dominated media reports and research
initiatives in recent years (see for example, the literature overview by Balliester & Elsheikhi,
2018). Although it can also be argued that there are still many issues and trends which could
benefit from more research. In New Zealand, the ‘future of work’ debate will probably benefit
from the current work being undertaken by the New Zealand Productivity Commission which
is trying to expand on the original research done by the Future of Work Commission (NZ
Labour Party, 2016; NZ Productivity Commission, 2019). The 2018 report from the Prime
Minister’ Business Advisory Council also links new technology and automation withproductivity and economic growth and analyses how automation can be leveraged to provide
rapid and positive changes (PM’s Business Advisory Council, 2018). However, a major partof the report highlights the necessity to focus on workforce implications: “How can New
Zealand prepare and support displaced, continuing and future workers through the transition?”(ibid, p.5). While the report addresses the changes in skill demands, unemployment andinequality problems, there is obviously a lot of uncertainty surrounding these trends and issues.
Other more critical and union-orientated views on the workforce implications can be found in
Martin and Windelow (2018), though, this publication also seems to accept that there will beconsiderable work and workforce implications in the near future.
The overhaul of vocational education structures and approaches, announced in February 2019,addresses both labour market activation and the ‘future of work’ concerns (Ministry of
39

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44
Education, 2019). The ‘future of work’ debate has clearly influenced the rationale for making
changes:
Our current vocational education system is poorly positioned to deliver on our futureneeds. Technology continues to change the world in which we live, learn and work,
both onshore and overseas, and these changes are likely to accelerate. Automation willchange the nature of work in New Zealand, with around a third of current jobs likely to
be significantly affected (Ministry of Education, 2019, p.11).
The proposed changes have both a centralising and regionalising intentions. A new central
body, called the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology, would provide oversights of
VET activities across the economy and be underpinned by a “unified vocational education
funding system” while most of these activities would be co-ordinated and planned to meetregional education and training needs (see Tables 1 & 2, Ministry of Education, 2019: 19 &
23). Besides stronger local co-ordination, it is also envisaged that further investments inmeeting VET needs at local and industry level are necessary, including leveraging theadvantages and facing the challenges of new technology.
While the positive effects of the planned changes appear to be ‘over-sold’, the current shortfalls
and labour market issues are highlighted (for example, see the table in Ministry of Education,
2019, p.16-17). Although the current shortfalls in terms of biases across the labour market,
industries, regional areas and ethnic groups are well-documented, it is unclear whether the
combination of centralised and regionalised focuses will be a ‘game-changer’. An increase infunding and an emphasis on effectiveness of local delivery will be a positive step, but bothincreases in funding and regional delivery effectiveness are still to be seen. In particular, thelink between schools and VET efforts would need to be enhanced. It also appears that the
proposed changes fail to grapple with the role of employers. Although a stronger employer
voice in the development and implementation of regionalised delivery is emphasised in several
places, the limited VET role played by many employers, especially smaller employers, in thecurrent system is not addressed at all. What are the new, different incentives for employers to
re-training and upskilling their workers to overcome general shortfalls in VET efforts
associated with a well-established ‘free-rider’ problem?
A new VET strategy and delivery modes could be a ‘game-changer’ but there are several
unanswered questions. Criticisms from people with vested interest in the current system havedominated the media reports and the political opposition. More broadly, recent policy
discussions have highlighted a number of concerns associated with the dynamics of the current
labour market which are being overlaid with various ‘future of work’ concerns. These pressures
may coalesce to create public policy changes which will lift active labour market, VET and
employment policies to overcome the current concerns and prepare the New Zealand labour
market against negative impact of the ‘future of work’.
Welfare policies, and Work and Income’s administration of the benefit system will also needto change. Government has indicated its response to the Welfare Experts Advisory Group
report is on a ‘three- to five-year’ work programme, and it remains unclear how far-reachingits policy changes will be. In addition to the benefit inadequacy problems highlighted by thereport, and the need for great focus on active labour market programmes discussed above,‘future of work’ considerations imply the need for other welfare policy changes. In particular,
to the extent there is growth in the number of people whose incomes are irregular andprecarious; welfare administration will need to become more nimble so that people can receive
financial assistance quickly and in full. Technological unemployment (and climate-change
40New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44
related transitions) will also require policy to address the problem as couple-based benefit
income testing that means one-earner families are not usually entitled to core benefit support.
Such a policy is not consistent with a labour market where many families with children need
two incomes but where redundancy and periods of retraining and job-search will become morecommon.

Discussion and conclusions: dealing with the impacts of future of workchanges and moving beyond a narrow view of employment relations
regulations
There is, quite rightly, some concern about the likely future impacts of technological change
on employment and on workers’ protections. At this stage, considerable uncertainty surrounds
where ‘the future of work’ might lead and further analyses, beyond the brief overview of thiscommentary, are clearly necessary. That said, some of the more cataclysmic predictions are, in
our view, overstated. Past experience does not support ideas of ‘de-jobbing’ or ‘the end ofwork’, and it is far from clear what effects the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ will have.
Casualisation figures are, at present, quite low in New Zealand and we have not seen any
significant evidence of increasing casualisation rates over the last decade.
At the same time, the likely labour market changes do require an active response bygovernment. Two risks need to mitigated and/or managed. The first concerns risks aroundcasualisation. Policy responses are needed to both control the growth of the forms ofcasualisation that undermine workers’ protections, and to enhance the protections of vulnerable
workers who are engaged in casualised work. We have already seen a number of employment
regulation changes designed to better protect vulnerable workers. These include some of theprovisions in the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2018; and the Government has
signalled further changes down the track, including better regulation of triangular employment
relationship, addressing the concerns surround contracting, and the introduction of mechanisms
for negotiating industry-wide minimum conditions and wages under the proposed Fair Pay
Agreements.
As we discuss above, the second area where new policy initiatives will be needed is to manage
structural labour market change. There are similarities here with the ‘Just Transition’ policies
for moving to a low-carbon economy that have been developed by the New Zealand Councilof Trade Unions (NZCTU, 2017) and are incorporated in the Labour and Green Parties’
confidence and supply agreement (New Zealand Parliament, 2017). Policies will be neededthat cushion the impacts on workers whose skills and experience are in declining demand due
to technological change, and which assist them to transition to new jobs where demand remains
strong or is growing. This was signalled in the Speech from the Throne with the Government
indicating it would “consider the long-term changes which need to occur to our systems ofwelfare and employment and education.”
Work has begun in some aspects of these long-term changes with Government having
announced major reform proposals in VET In welfare, however, reform is very slow andremains uncertain. With the possibility of a deterioration in global economic conditions, itwould be wise to make headway on these problems while there is high labour demand and highlevels of employment.

41

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 32-44

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44New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57

Living Wage Employer Status and Job Attitudes and Behaviours
JARROD HAAR*
Abstract
New Zealand organisations have begun to respond positively to the concept of a Living Wage (LW),
but the effects on job attitudes and behaviours is largely unknown. Social exchange theory would
suggest employees should reciprocate with stronger attitudes and behaviours, and this is tested on asample of 190 New Zealand employees with 57 per cent working for a LW employer. The findings
indicate that employees in LW organisations are positively associated with organisational trust, which
fully mediates effects towards turnover intentions and Organisational Citizenship Behaviours (OCBs),and partially mediates effects towards career satisfaction. The findings suggest that providing a LW
can benefit organisations, through enhancing their employees’ attitudes and behaviours.
Keywords: Living Wage Employer; organisational trust; career satisfaction; turnover intentions;
OCBs; mediation effects.

Introduction
The Auckland Council introduced a Living Wage (LW) to all employees from 1st September 2019.
This represented a pay rate of $21.15, compared to the New Zealand minimum wage of $17.70 (at thattime). The Auckland Mayor stated that: “The cost of living in Auckland was higher than the rest of
New Zealand and the wage increase ensured pay reflected this” (Goff as cited in Stuff, 2019). The LW
is often argued as being a counter to the growth of work that is precarious and relates to thoseindividuals in paid employment who are still economically disadvantaged (Carr et al., 2018a).
However, a Living Wage Employer (LWE), (which represents an organisation paying the LW), may
not necessarily have a workforce that is predominantly paid minimum wage. Indeed, employees inorganisations where they may not personally gain from a policy may still reciprocate positively
because it meets a social need (e.g., Haar & Spell, 2003; Haar et al., 2004). Consequently, we needresearch to better understand the potential influence LWE status can have on employee attitudes andbehaviours.
The study reported in this paper focusses on employees located in New Zealand, their experiences
around the LW, and whether working for a LWE is a sufficient mechanism to influence and enhancetheir job attitudes and behaviours. Werner and Lim (2016) suggested that organisations adopt a LW as
a result of strong ethical considerations. Carr et al., (2018a) concur, stating that working for a LWE
might provide employees with “…improvements in quality of work and life” (p.901). Carr et al.,(2018a) also suggest that organisations who become a LWE typically do so in response to a social
responsibility around doing what is right for their workforce – which might otherwise include thelowest paid employees (i.e. those on minimum wage). Carr et al., (2018a; 2018b), Werner & Lim,
(2016) and others argue, however, that there is a need for a better understanding of the outcomes of
the Living Wage.

*

Prof Jarrod Haar, Management Department, AUT, jarrod.haar@aut.ac.nz

45New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57
In response to the call for more research in this area, the study presented here examines LWE status
and uses Social Exchange Theory (SET) to understand why providing a benefit like a LW canpsychologically motivate employees to respond with stronger job attitudes and behaviours. This study
models these effects through organisational trust because trust is a key ingredient in the relationships(specifically social exchange) between employer and employee. Overall, the study makes threecontributions. First, it uses LWE status as a predictor of job attitudes and behaviours and seeks tounderstand direct effects through examining a broad range of job outcomes. Second, by includingorganisational trust as a mediator, it provides deeper insights into the process and psychologicalmechanism by which LWE status enhance their employees job attitudes and behaviours. Finally, it
uses sophisticated analyses and a robust and broad sample to provide greater confidence in the findings.
The study model is shown below (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Hypothesised Study Model

Social Exchange Theory
Social Exchange Theory (SET) is used as the theoretical argument to understand why LWE status
might influence attiudes and behaviours of employees. SET is defined by Blau (1964, p. 91) as“…voluntary actions of individuals that are motivated by the returns they are expected to bring andtypically do in fact bring from others”. Social exchanges differ considerably from economic
exchanges, although the notion of pay is important in the context of LWE status. This is because suchan increase via a living wage means low paid employees are paid more, but under SET this might still
trigger beneficial attiudes and behaviours of employees, irrespective of actual income. SET aligns with
the norm of reciprocity, within which Gouldner (1960) argues that people help those who have helped
them. Further, although there are no guarantees of such reciprocation, such a behaviour is typical.
Under SET, helpful behaviour means that employees can experience a feeling of obligation and trustof their employers (Haar & Spell, 2004), where they acknowledge the actions of the employer andrespond accordingly. Haar and Spell (2004) also showed this policy must be valued by the employee.
With a LW, we might expect those earning below the LW threshold to respond positively because of
the economic gains and, as such, there is value in a LW policy for which such employees personallygain. However, this might also extend out to other employees already paid above the LW threshold.
This is because they might characterise the behaviour of their employer as positive and supportive of
all employees – especially those on low pay – with such ethical behaviours being viewed positively
by employees. Moreover, there is a wealth of empirical evidence (e.g. Kurtessis et al., 2017; Rhoades
46

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57& Eisenberger, 2002) that supports the SET mechanism in the workforce and, in particular, shows that,in response to positive actions by an employer, employees will reciprocate with more positive attitudes
and behaviours. In the Auckland Council LW example noted above, it would be expected that LWE
status triggers felt obligations. In essence, the adoption of a LW sends the signal to employees thatthey are valued and supported. Ultimately, Blau (1964) notes that the positive actions of employers(like a Living Wage policy) can lead to “…feelings of personal obligations, gratitude, and trust
amongst employees” (p.94). Hence, LWE status might signal to employees that their employer cares
about all their employees and their role in society, thus facilitating greater trust. Shore and Shore (1995)
also noted that, by introducing policies such as the LW, employees can view these policies as a social
exchange that go beyond an economic relationship.

Job Attitudes and Behaviours
As stated earlier, the study reported here examines several employee job attitudes and behaviours, andhas a broad focus to ensure the potential influence of LWE status is well-tested. Gattiker and Larwood(1988) and Greenhaus et al., (2000) define careers as a sequence of positions that are separate but
related that individuals have over their life, and thus career satisfaction is an affective orientation ofthese work roles. Haar and Staniland (2016) highlight that career satisfaction is just one factor in an
employee’s work experience, and the present study follows the general approach in the literature byexamining subjective career success, which relates to individuals making judgements about theiroverall career experiences (Ng et al., 2005).
Organ (1988) defines Organisational Citizenship Behaviours (OCBs) as “…discretionary behaviors
that are not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system and that, in the aggregate,
promote the effective functioning of the organization” (p.4). Importantly, OCBs are not part of an
employee’s job description or contractually-rewarded job achievements (Organ & Ryan, 1995). For
example, while employers would expect employees to help other co-workers and represent thecompany after hours, if required, then these duties are not considered as OCBs. OCBs can also help tofacilitate the functioning of an organisation in a positive and productive manner (Bhargava &Rupashree, 2009; Organ & Ryan, 1995). OCBs include defending the organisation and“…interpersonally oriented behaviours that contribute to organisational accomplishment” (Roche &Haar, 2013, p. 3401). Moreover, OCBs are linked with organisational performance (Podsakoff et al.,2009).
Turnover intentions, which is defined as employees voluntarily leaving their job, is also linked to lower
organisational performance as a consequence of the potentially high costs associated with turnover(Allen et al., 2010; Hancock et al., 2013). There is meta-analytic support showing turnover intentions
as the strongest predictor of actual turnover (Tett & Meyer, 1993) and meta-analyses highlighting a
number of associated factors including those around compensation (e.g., Griffeth et al., 2000). Given
the status of turnover intentions as one of the chief employee outcomes studied, and its significancewithin a New Zealand context (e.g., Haar et al., 2012), testing this outcome towards LWE status isimportant.

Living Wage Employer Status
47

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57
Carr et al., (2016, p.3) state that “…a living wage is calculated to enable meaningful participation insociety through recreation, supporting a family, and saving”. Using an approach based on SET, it isargued that employees in LWE status organisations will have a direct effect on the job attitudes andbehaviours of employees. LWEs are likely to understand the signal provided by their employer as oneof supporting the notion of decent work (Carr et al., 2018a). Indeed, some have argued that LWE status
signals a strong ethical culture by organisations (Krugman, 1998) where such employers affirm a focus
on employees’ quality of life, and employers acting in a decent, moral, and ethical way. Applying theShore and Shore (1995) argument around mercantile relationships versus social exchange
relationships, the higher compensation provided under a LW scheme and, importantly, at all levels ofan organisation, means that employees are likely to interpret LWE status as positive signals of theirorganisation’s social exchange behaviours.
Being a LWE means that the employer recognises the value of all employees in the organisation,
including the lowest paid, and acknowledge that the costs of living currently require more than thepresent minimum wage. With the LWE status comes a LW message with value-based language(Werner & Lim, 2016) which might include fairness for all employees and respecting all employees,
including the lowest paid. As noted above, this investment in employees means that employees arelikely to view LWE status as a valued policy that triggers a SET relationship (as per Shore & Shore,1995) and, thus, leads to feelings of obligation (Haar & Spell, 2004) and greater employee job attitudes
and behaviours (Kurtessis et al., 2017). Indeed, Carr et al. (2016) notes that the linkages to employee
outcomes from a LW need greater testing and, under SET, the links are expected to be beneficial. Thus,
employees recognise the value of a LW (including beyond personal increased income) and will
reciprocate with enhanced job attitudes and behaviours. This leads to the first set of hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: LWE status will be positively related to (a) career satisfaction and (b) OCBs.
Hypothesis 2: LWE status will be negatively related to turnover intentions.

Organisational Trust
Robinson (1996) defined trust as: “…one’s expectations, assumptions, or beliefs about the likelihoodthat another’s future actions will be beneficial, favorable, or at least not detrimental to one’s interests”(p.576). Organisational trust is a valuable construct and has been extensively researched and is wellstudied amongst employee studies (Bunker et al., 2004), and it is fundamentally linked to SET(Guerrero & Herrbach, 2009). Indeed, while positive relationships at work have been linked to shaping
organisational trust (Haar et al., 2019), the linkages have not been well explored in the LW context.
In their meta-analysis around SET relationships amongst employees, Kurtessis et al. (2017) reported
organisational trust was strongly supported and it is expected that LWE status will positively shapeorganisational trust perceptions. Indeed, the literature on LW highlights that trust is a vital part ofunderstanding the role of LWE status (Carr et al., 2018a; Krugman, 1998; Werner & Lim, 2016). I
posit the following:
Hypothesis 3: LWE status will be positively related to organisational trust.
Beyond a direct influence from LWE status, organisational trust is also explored as a mediator. Thisis because trust might play an important organisational role regarding its effective functioning (Dirks& Ferrin, 2001). Ultimately, trust between the employee and their employer builds cooperation andperformance and success for both parties (Robinson, 1996). Indeed, this mutually beneficial
relationship aligns well with SET. As individual outcomes, there is support from organisational trust
as both predictor and mediator. Aryee et al., (2002) found organisational trust predicted turnover48

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57
intentions and mediated the effect of organisational justice. Similar effects have been found towards
OCBs (e.g., Wat & Shaffer, 2005) and again towards career outcomes (e.g., Crawshaw & Brodbeck,2011). Similarly, Podsakoff et al., (2000) suggested that OCBs are likely to be best understood as being
influenced through job attitudes and, given our SET approach, organisational trust is likely to beimportant. This leads to the following:
Hypothesis 4: Organisational trust will mediate the positive influence of LWE status on (a) career
satisfaction and (b) OCBs.
Hypothesis 5: Organisational trust will mediate the negative influence of LWE status on turnover
intentions.

MethodSample and Procedure
Data from New Zealand employees was collected in 2019 via a Qualtrics survey panel, with the LW
being the specific focus. A filter question removed respondents who were unsure of the LWE statusof their workplace and the final sample was 190 New Zealand employees (57.4 per cent LWE status).
The Qualtrics panel system removes respondents who complete the survey too fast or slow and enable
only one completion per respondent. This approach to data collection has yielded robust samples (e.g.
Haar et al., 2018; Haar et al., 2019) and a recent meta-analysis (Walter et al., 2019) reported that panel
data and data sourced by conventional means were comparable and not significantly different.
Overall, slightly more respondents were female (68 per cent), age ranging from 19 to 70 years, withan average age of 41.8 years (SD=12.6). Average hours worked were 40.1 hours/week (SD=8.0) andaverage tenure was 5.2 years (SD=3.6). By ethnicity, 55 per cent were New Zealand European, withthe rest well spread across Maori, Pacific peoples, Asians and Indians. By sector, 44 per cent ofrespondents were in the private sector while 56 per cent of the respondents were employed in the public
sector. Finally, by firm size, 26.3 per cent worked in small-sized firms (50 employees or less), 25.3
per cent worked in medium-sized firms (51-250 employees), 24.2 per cent were in large-sized firms(251-1000 employees) and 24.2 per cent in very large-sized firms (more than 1000 employees).

Measures
LW Employer was computed by asking the question “Does your employer pay the Living Wage?”,with 1=LWE status and 0=non-LWE status. This was self-reported and purposefully did not seek todetermine whether the employer was an accredited member of a LW movement. Rather, the focus waswhether employees felt their organisation paid the LW.
Organisational Trust was measured using 3-items by Robinson (1996), coded 1=strongly disagree,
5=strongly agree. This construct has been validated in a study of New Zealand employees (e.g., Haaret al., 2019). A sample item is “In general, I believe my employer’s motives and intentions are good”(α= .87).
Career Satisfaction was measured using three items by Greenhaus et al., (1990), coded 1=strongly
disagree, 5=strongly agree. A sample question was “I am satisfied with the success I have achieved in49New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57
my career” (α=.93) and this construct has been validated in New Zealand studies (e.g., Haar &Staniland, 2016).
OCBs were measured using three items from Lee and Allen (2002), coded 1= never, 5= always. A
sample item is “I defend this organisation when other employees criticise it” (α = .75).
Turnover Intentions were measured using three items from Kelloway et al., (1999), coded 1=strongly
disagree, 5=strongly agree. A sample item is “I am thinking about leaving my organisation” (α= .94).
Control Variables. We controlled for Age (years), Gender (1=females, 0=males), Education (1=highschool, 2=polytechnic, 3=university degree, 4=postgraduate qualification), Tenure (years) and Hours
Worked (per week), because these factors can influence job outcomes (e.g., Ten Brummelhuis et al.,2014; Haar et al., 2019) and they have meta-analytic support (Ng & Feldman, 2010; Griffeth et al.,2000).
Measurement Model
Following recommendations by Williams et al., (2009), a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was
conducted in analysis of a moment structures (AMOS) (version 25) to confirm study constructs, using
the following goodness-of-fit indexes: (1) the comparative fit index (CFI), (2) the root-mean-squareerror of approximation (RMSEA), and (3) the standardised root mean residual (SRMR), with a superior
model reflected in scores of CFI ≥0.95, RMSEA ≤ 0.08 and SRMR ≤ 0.10. Overall, the hypothesised
measurement model fits the data best for the expected five-factor solution: χ2(df)= 132.9 (68) p= .000,
CFI=.97, RMSEA=.07, and SRMR=.05. Testing of alternative CFA models (Hair et al., 2010)
indicated the alternative models were all significantly worse fit to the data (p< .001).
Analysis
Relationships were tested using PROCESS 3.1 (in SPSS version 25), specifically model 4 (mediation).
Control variables were entered in Step 1 with LWE status entered as the independent variable,organisational trust as the mediator variable and three models were run: (1) career satisfaction, (2)OCBs, and (3) turnover intentions. The existence of mediation effects by using bootstrapping (5000
times) and the skewness and kurtosis statistics indicated that our constructs were normal and within
acceptable limits (Hair et al., 2010). Furthermore, the additional model 4 aspect was used to determine
the indirect effects of LWE status on job attitudes and behaviours.

50New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57

Results
Descriptive statistics for the study variables are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 shows that LWE status is significantly correlated with organisational trust (r= .27, p< .01),
career satisfaction (r= .34, p< .01), OCBs (r= .16, p< .05), and turnover intentions (r= -.22, p< .01).
Organisational trust is significantly correlated with career satisfaction (r= .50, p< .01), OCBs (r= .32,
p< .01), and turnover intentions (r= -.46, p< .01). Career satisfaction is significantly correlated with
OCBs (r= .39, p< .01), turnover intentions (r= -.43, p< .01) and tenure (r= .20, p< .01). Finally, turnover
intentions are significantly correlated with age (r= -.29, p< .01), education (r= .16, p< .05) and tenure(r= -.18, p< .05). The results of the mediation regression analyses are presented in Table 2.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57

The results show that LWE status is significant and directly related to career satisfaction (β= .71(.15),
p= .0000 [LL= .41, UL= 1.0]), OCBs (β= .32(.15), p= .0295 [LL= .03, UL= .61]), and turnover
intentions (β= -.45(.17), p= .0081 [LL= -.78, UL= -.12]), supporting Hypotheses 1a, 1b and 2.
Furthermore, LWE status is significantly related to organisational trust (β= .53(.14), p= .0002 [LL=
.25, UL= .80]), supporting Hypothesis 3. Further, organisational trust is significant and directly related
to career satisfaction (β= .50(.07), p= .0000 [LL= .36, UL= .64]), OCBs (β= .31(.07), p= .0000 [LL=
.16, UL= .46]), and turnover intentions (β= -.54(.08), p= .0000 [LL= -.70, UL= -.39]), and, when
included in the model, it partially mediates the effect of LWE status on career satisfaction, which effectdrops to (β= .45(.14), p= .0017 [LL= .17, UL= .72]), and fully mediates the effect of LWE status on
OCBs, which effect drops to (β= .16(.15), p= .2777 [LL= -.13, UL= .45]) and turnover intentions,which effect drops to (β= -.16(.15), p= .2993 [LL= -.47, UL= .14]). These findings support Hypotheses
4 and 5. Finally, these mediating effects were further explored by examining the total indirect effectsof LWE status on job outcomes and these effects were statistically different from zero with 95 per centconfidence for career satisfaction (.12 to .43), OCBs (.06 to .29) and turnover intentions (-.50 to -.12).
Thus, while partial and full mediation effects are found when organisational trust is included in themodels, the indirect effect from LWE status is still significant for all job outcomes. This highlights theimportant role that LWE status plays on job attitudes and behaviours through organisational trust.
Overall, across the control variables, only age was significantly related to turnover intentions (β= .03(.01), p= .0001 [LL= -.04, UL= -.01]) only, with all other controls non-significant. Finally, themodels accounted for a small amount of variance towards organisational trust (10 per cent) and OCBs
(12 per cent), but larger and more robust amounts of variance towards career satisfaction (33%) andturnover intentions (32 per cent).

Discussion
The goal of the current study was to determine whether LWE status was directly related to the job
attitudes and behaviours of New Zealand employees when we compared respondents working in LWE
status versus non-LWE status organisations. Using SET, it was expected that, when employers in LWE
status organisations paid all their employees well above the minimum wage (an additional 19.5 percent), the employees would respond positively to the employers’ support and confidence. Shore andShore (1995) noted that when the employers’ policies and actions are interpreted by employees as
acknowledging their workforce efforts and showing some form of investment in the workforce,
employees are likely to react under a social exchange rather than economic exchange. In the present
study, policies like paying a LW make a significant contribution to the lowest paid employees in an
organisation and, thus, signals that the employer has a social conscience, which, in turn, can facilitate
felt obligations under SET (Haar & Spell, 2004) and, thus, lead to higher job attitudes and behaviours.
Overall, these effects were supported, with LWE status employees reporting significantly higherorganisational trust, career satisfaction and OCBs, and significantly lower turnover intentions. These
effects mirror meta-analyses around SET in employees (Kurtessis et al., 2017). Indeed, the direct effectof LWE status was significant and moderate in strength across all attitudes and behaviours. Further,
we sought to test organisational trust as a mediator because trust is viewed as an importantorganisational factor (Robinson, 1996; Bunker et al., 2004) and heavily linked to SET. Guerrero andHerrbach (2009) highlighted that SET is predicated on trust – the employer trusts that employees will
do the right thing and reciprocate – because this is not promised or established as a ‘given’ (Gouldner,52

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57
1960). Overall, the empirical evidence found here supports the notion that LWE status is positively
related to organisational trust and, in turn, organisational trust predicts job attitudes and behaviours,
and mediates the influence of LWE status on these job outcomes. This supports meta-analysis around
SET relationships and trust (Kurtessis et al., 2017) and reiterates the value of trust when examining
SET relationships.
Beyond the direct and mediating effects found here, the analysis also allows us to understand theindirect effects that LWE status plays on the job outcomes examined here. The analysis conducted in
PROCESS shows that the indirect effects of LWE status on job attitudes and behaviours remains
significant and moderate in strength (albeit weaker towards OCBs). This highlights that, whileorganisational trust plays an important role in shaping these job attitudes and behaviours, LWE statuscontinues to play a valuable role in shaping these attitudes and behaviours, even when organisational
trust proceeds to play mediation (partial and full) effects. Consequently, this provides evidence that
LWE status plays a valuable role, not least through shaping trust perceptions which are also significant
predictors of career satisfaction, OCBs and turnover intentions in the present study.
Implications
The present study provides important implications for organisations, especially those considering
adopting a LW. The findings highlight that employees do react positively to having an employer who
pays the LW, likely because this signals to employees that their employers have a social conscienceand cares about the wellbeing of their employees, which aligns well with the theoretical mechanism
used (SET). Hence, employers adopting a LW might expect employees across all positions in an
organisation to respond positively to LWE status. This might include attitudes and behaviours thathave additional organisational benefits. For example, Podsakoff et al. (2009) in their meta-analysis,
found OCBs were positively related to organisational performance, while lowering employee turnover
reduces costs (Allen et al., 2010) and improves organisational performance (Hancock et al., 2013).
Consequently, LWE status is likely to have flow-on effects towards shaping the overall performanceof organisations. Adopting a LW may make employees more trusting and, subsequently, more likely
to stay and also engage in more helpful behaviours, which all help shape the performance of theorganisation.
While the present study responds to calls for research on the LW (e.g., Carr et al., 2018a, 2018b;
Werner & Lim, 2016), more work is needed to understand the potential breadth of job attitudes andbehaviours influenced by LWE status. Future research might seek to determine the influence highperformance work systems might play in combination with LWE status, as these might further enhance
the positive influences on job attitudes and behaviours under SET. Researchers should seek to test awider range of job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction) and behaviours (e.g., creativity) to gain a greater
understanding of the LW. Beyond job attitudes and behaviours, the wellbeing of the employee is alsoof paramount interest to researchers, and meta-analysis shows that SET relationships also effectwellbeing (e.g., Kurtessis et al., 2017). Whether this holds within the LWE status needs to be
determined (e.g., employee mental health).
Limitations
Podsakoff et al., (2003) highlight a potential limitation in the majority of employee studies is the issueof common method variance (CMV) when data is cross-sectional in nature. Accordingly,
recommendations by Podsakoff et al. (2003) were followed and separated the constructs used in ourstudy throughout the survey and these were not in the linear order of independent, mediator anddependent variables. Beyond this, the study constructs were subject to advanced statistical analysis
53

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 45-57(CFA in AMOS) and, following recommendations from Podsakoff et al. (2003), the Harman’s One
Factor Test was used as a post hoc test of CMV. The unrotated factor analysis resulted in no single
factor dominating, which indicates that CMV is not an issue (e.g., Brougham & Haar, 2018). Overall,
the sample was moderate in size but well spread across age, ethnicity, and sector, and provides usefulconfidence in the results.

Conclusion
The current study tested the influence of LWE status on employee job attitudes and behaviours andfound strong and consistent support for these effects. While the influence was found to be partiallymediated by organisational trust, the analysis showed the indirect effect of LWE status was significant
and, thus, while these effects towards employee behaviours (OCBs and turnover intentions) were fully
mediated by organisational trust, LWE status does play a significant and important indirect effect.
Overall, the present study provides some concrete evidence around the important role that employers
offering a LW can have on their employees. Consequently, organisations unsure of the potential effects
beyond higher labour costs might consider adopting a LW because, through such a policy, they arelikely to stimulate and enhance their employees job attitudes and behaviours. Given the recent attention
to the LW in New Zealand (e.g., Auckland Council), this study highlights the potential benefits that
may be on offer for organisations. Further study and analysis are encouraged.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 58-75

Awards and collective bargaining in Australia: what do they do, andare they relevant to New Zealand?
DAVID PEETZ*
Abstract
This paper explains, in some depth, how the system of awards, collective agreements and individual
contracts works in Australia. It also describes how many people are covered by these arrangements,
how much they are paid and how awards and agreements interact. It discusses the effects of the award
system, which are probably greater on equity (compressing wage relativities, providing some
opportunities for action on gender pay equity) than on productivity (though skill-based wage
structures may have some effect). The issues raised by it are relevant to debates in New Zealand about
fair pay agreements, wage levels and pay equity.
Keywords: awards, collective bargaining, collective agreements, Australia, New ZealandIntroduction
The wage fixing system in Australia was, for a long time, unique amongst developed countries otherthan New Zealand. Minimum wages were set for large numbers of occupations and industries andvaried according to the skill level of the job. These minimum wages were set by industrial tribunals
through compulsorily arbitrated decisions that led to ‘awards’, and these awards contained provisions
for minimum employment conditions and minimum wages for different jobs (in effect, for different
skill levels).
While that system has persisted in Australia (it was abolished in New Zealand in 1991), there havebeen very substantial modifications since 2006 that limit its scope and impact, reduce geographic
variation and emphasise horizontal consistency based on skill level. In addition, collective agreements
set wages and conditions for many workers. In theory, these cannot provide lesser benefits, on
average, for employees than the award.
The operation of the Australian system, particularly at present, is relevant to New Zealand, as policy
makers seek to deal with both equity and efficiency objective in industrial legislation. Some, forexample, see something like awards as providing a model for multi-employer bargaining or for
introducing some form of skill-based, industry-level regulation.
This paper, therefore, seeks to investigate the following questions: how does the system of awards,
collective agreements and individual contracts work in Australia? How many people are covered bythese arrangements? What do we know about their effects? What is the relevance for New Zealand?
The focus is mainly on awards because they are something not seen in New Zealand any more, but
are relevant to the issue of ‘fair pay agreements’ that has been considered in New Zealand.

*

Professor of Employment Relations, Griffith University Business School, Queensland Australia

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Awards and legislative minimums
The relationship between actual wages, awards and collective agreements in Australia is best
illustrated by Figure 1, for three workers covered by the same award. Worker A is paid only the award
rate, which is W1. They are entitled to the legislatively determined National Employment Standards(NES), which cover a number of employment conditions but not wages. Worker B is covered by thesame award but they also receive an individual ‘over award’ payment, so their pay is W2, which may
be set out in a written or unwritten employment contract. Worker C is covered by a collective
agreement, and so is paid W3 which, in this case, is above W3, but can be anything not less than theaward wage W1.

Figure 1: Awards, agreements and pay in Australia

Not just pay but also conditions of employment are set out in awards and collective agreements. A
judgement is made by the tribunal as to whether, overall, workers are better off under a collective
agreement than under an award, taking account of all pay and conditions provisions. This is referred
to as the ‘better off overall test’ (BOOT). Collective agreements (CAs) are approved by a tribunal(presently called the Fair Work Commission), in a process that is usually very quick and perfunctory,
especially for union CAs.
A simple timeline summarising key moments in the development of the award system is in Figure 2
below. While awards co-exist with collective bargaining, there have been major changes in thatinteraction over time.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 58-75

Figure 2: Key moments in development of awards in Australia

Awards and the move to enterprise bargaining
Awards became part of the Australian industrial relations system before and through the beginningof the 20th century, first in various colonial or state jurisdictions and then in the federal (national)
jurisdiction, where, constitutionally, they existed for the ‘prevention or settlement’ of interstateindustrial disputes. Awards were established by tribunals through a process of compulsory arbitration(if one party wanted arbitration, the other could not avoid it). An award could cover an occupation,
an industry or some combination. Some awards were quite extensive: the federal Metals Industry
Award, often the ‘pacesetter’ for other awards, contained over 300 job classifications, each with its
own wage.
Collective bargaining existed alongside awards. Sometimes this led to a separate award for aparticular firm (an ‘enterprise award’), other times it led to ‘over-award payments’, that is wages
above the minimums specified in awards. Over-award payments could also result from individual
negotiation or from unilateral management decision. Over-award payments were rare in the public
sector but in 1989, around 77 per cent of private sector workplaces provided at least some workers
over-award payments (Callus, Morehead, Cully, & Buchanan, 1991). Overall, though, award
variations were the formal mechanism by which the majority of employees gained wage increases.

For differing reasons, peak unions and employers and the government came to support moving to asystem of ‘enterprise bargaining’ in the late 1980s (Briggs, 2001; Business Council of Australia,
1989). In October 1991, the federal tribunal (by then called the Australian Industrial Relations
Commission, AIRC) introduced a new wage system with a formal mechanism for progressing single60

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 58-75
employer bargaining, through the creation of a new wage principle (the ‘Enterprise Bargaining
Principle’). Dissatisfied with the slow spread of single-employer bargaining, the Labor Government
in mid-1992 amended the Industrial Relations Act 1988 to remove the tribunal’s role in scrutinising
proposed single-employer certified agreements by reference to the public interest, requiring it insteadto ensure that agreements did not disadvantage employees, and satisfied some other more technicalrequirements. More substantial amendments in late 1993 made the encouragement of single-employer
bargaining an explicit object of the Act, strengthened protections for some employees under singleemployer agreements and clarified the distinction between the single-employer bargaining stream
and the award system.
The impact of these changes was to dramatically change arbitration’s role. Arbitration over interest
disputes (Spielmans, 1939) was minimised by the primacy given to bargaining between the parties.
The main role for arbitration became deciding safety net adjustments. However, these arbitrated
safety net adjustments initially accounted for only a small proportion (about 10 per cent) of overall
wage increases as reflected in average weekly earnings in the mid-1990s. The remainder of wage
increases, set by bargaining or by unilateral determination by management, were not subject toarbitration.
Thus at broadly similar times, Australia and New Zealand shifted from emphasising awards toenterprise-level bargaining. But while New Zealand’s radical shift, through the Employment
Contracts Act 1991 (ECA), abolished the award system altogether and any formal recognition ofunions (Deakin, 2019; Deeks & Rasmussen, 2002), Australia retained awards as setting a safety netof minimum conditions, and prioritised collective over individual bargaining.
The Workplace Relations Act 1996 (WRA), under a Coalition government in Australia, further
restricted the scope for arbitration. Awards were limited to 20 ‘allowable matters’. Beyond these, theCommission could not arbitrate, except in more limited circumstances. The short-lived‘WorkChoices’ amendments to the legislation, taking effect in 2006 and repealed between 2008 and2010, sought to limit awards further. They took the wage fixing function in awards away from the
AIRC, giving it to a newly created Fair Pay Commission. The lasting impact of the WorkChoices
legislation was to largely abolish state jurisdictions, by making novel use of the federal Parliament’s
constitutional ability to legislate with respect to corporations. Most states referred their law-making
powers over the remaining ‘non-corporate’ entities to the federal Parliament.
Through this period, collective agreements (CAs), known as ‘enterprise agreements’, became themain source of wage increases, particularly for unionised employees. The gap between pay rates in
CAs and awards widened. Pay and classification structures for many employees were determinedthrough CAs, not awards.
In 2010, the terminology was changed – ‘awards’ became ‘Modern Awards’ (but for the purposes ofthis paper, the term ‘awards’ covers either). The constitutional basis for the process was also changed.
Up until 2006, awards were created in the settlement of industrial disputes (see figure 3). Since then,awards have been administratively created by tribunals in a process that is, in a formal sense, simpler(see figure 4). For example, in April 2020, award changes in response to Covid-19 were initiated by
the tribunal, not requested by any party. (Other Covid-19-driven changes to worker entitlements
resulted from legislation.) In all periods, however, awards set the floor for pay and conditions.

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Figure 3: How Australian awards were created before 2006

Figure 4: How Australian awards have been created since 2006

While these changes in award creation processes were significant, the shift towards single-employer
bargaining in the 1990s was more momentous for the role of awards.
Core concepts in the ‘Fair Work’ system
In 2010, the Fair Work Act established minimum legislative standards in a range of areas previously
covered by awards (the ‘National Employment Standards’), but minimum wages and most aspects ofworking time remained covered by awards, renamed ‘Modern Awards’. The coverage of awards was
restructured by the tribunal (renamed ‘Fair Work Australia’ and later the ‘Fair Work Commission’),to more closely coincide with orthodox definitions of industry, and their number was reduced 120.
Pay rates in awards were restructured to remove inconsistencies, including between states, now thata single national system was largely in place.

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There were less extensive changes to the WorkChoices provisions on industrial action and collective
agreements. Despite amendments, these remained more favourable to employers than many of theprovisions of the 1996 or especially the 1993 legislation, particularly in the context of subsequentdecisions by the tribunal and federal court.
How the modern award system operates
Modern Awards should be seen as part of an overall mechanism for determining the minimum pay
and conditions of employees.
The first element, outside of Modern Awards but crucial to understanding them, is the legislated
National Employment Standards (NES). These include maximum hours per week, recreation leave,long service leave entitlements (additional leave that employees could access after a defined periodwith the same employer), rights to redundancy pay, and a right to request flexibility in working hours
in certain circumstances or extensions of parental leave. The NES are not without problems, forexample, some aspects still provide very wide discretion to employers (Peetz & Murray, 2015). Still,there were no legislated minimum standards before 2006. The NES can only be varied by Parliament
and, so far, proposed amendments have only focussed on extending eligibility to the right to request
flexibility. There is some limited similarity between Australia’s NES and the various legislatively
determined minimum standards in New Zealand, but the NES do not specify an adult or juniorminimum wage, and cover some matters not encompassed by New Zealand legislation.
The second element is the minimum standards set out in awards. In addition to minimum wages, theseinclude provisions on night and weekend premiums (‘penalty rates’ in Australian parlance), overtime
pay, the ordinary span of hours, and other provisions relating to working time and several other issues.
Almost all employees are now subject to the minimum standards set out in awards and the NES, andthere is a Miscellaneous Award for employees not covered by one of the industry-specific awards.
Modern Awards have fewer provisions than previous awards.
There is also a ‘national minimum wage’ (NMW) in Australia. It has for several years been set at thelowest rate in any award, and since the completion of award restructuring in the 1980s many awards
have identical bottom rates. It is varied every year at the same time as the rest of the award pay. In
Figure 1, for workers paid the lowest classification in an award, the NMW will normally be the sameas the award rate, W1. Only one per cent of employers pay one or more employees according to the‘National Minimum Wage Order’ (the mechanism by which the NMW is set and applied) and 0.2 percent of employees are thereby paid the NMW (Fair Work Commission, 2017a).
By contrast, the minimum wage in New Zealand is set in legislation, and amended not by anindependent tribunal, but by the government of the day (also annually, since 2000). In the absence ofawards, it is significant for many workers.
Australian awards are now, broadly speaking, horizontally consistent (a basic trade-level job in one
award will have the same minimum wage as a basic trade-level job in another award). Geographic
differences are now essentially removed through the creation of the national system in which a
Modern Award covers a whole industry regardless of state. So awards now, in effect, produce a setof minimum wages that vary according to the skill level of the job in a consistent manner. Employers
who are not profitable enough to pay award wages are not generally permitted to pay sub-award
wages – presuming those who do so get caught. (There are mechanisms for adjusting to temporary,special circumstances but these are not widely used in holding down award rates.) This systemprovides a contrast to some other countries where minimum wages vary geographically but not byskill level.
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Awards are varied by the federal tribunal. Unions and employers make submissions. On matterswhere they agree, the tribunal would rarely come up with a different position, but there are many
matters on which there is no agreement.
On top of awards and the NES sit collectively-determined CAs, and individual contracts. Employees
guaranteed an income above a certain threshold (around $120,000 in 2013) are not subject to the‘better off overall’ test (Munro, 2013).

Collective bargaining
Levels, scope, parties and processes of bargaining
In Australia, collective bargaining is overwhelmingly at the single-employer level. This can be either
a whole enterprise, a workplace, or some other part of an enterprise, such as an operational divisionor class of employees (for example, many universities have a CA for academic staff and another CA
for general or professional staff). Multi-employer bargaining is made deliberately difficult – incontrast to the pre-enterprise bargaining system, where much negotiation took place at the industry
level (for example, staff across all universities were covered by a single award). This is mainly
because of the different laws regarding industrial action for single- and multi-employer agreements.
The taking of industrial action in Australia is illegal unless carried out in a prescribed manner.
Amongst other things, it can only be done in the negotiation of a new CA while there is no valid CA
still in place (that is, any pre-existing CA covering those employees must be expired, though it neednot have been terminated), and after extensive procedural rules regarding prior bargaining in goodfaith, the holding of a secret ballot in a prescribed manner and the giving of notice as to the exact
form of the industrial action are followed. These exemptions to the general illegality of industrial
action are not available to unions seeking a multi-employer agreement, so in practice, the taking ofmulti-employer industrial action is illegal. This distinction between the legal treatment of single- andmulti-employer bargaining – a feature of Australian law since 1993 – is not common in industrialised
countries. These rules have not prevented all illegal industrial action, though, in very recent years,
only a minority of disputes have been illegal (Peetz, 2016).
The scope of collective bargaining in Australia is restricted to matters defined as being within theemployment relationship. Initially, this was for constitutional reasons but, more recently, this has
been due to legislative restriction and judicial interpretation.
Non-union collective agreements
In Australia, CAs can be negotiated without a union. Technically, a CA is negotiated between an
employer and employees, and is only validated after a majority of employees have voted in favour.
The WRA had made non-union CAs considerably easier than previously. They had been originallyenabled by the 1993 legislation, but initially showed little growth.
In unionised workplaces, unions represent employees in negotiations but in non-union workplaces
there may occasionally be an elected or employer-selected negotiating committee, or an employer
may simply put its proposal to a vote. Sometimes, when negotiations between an employer and union
break down, the employer may put their version of the proposed agreement to a ballot of employees,
often to be voted down by employees. CAs that do not involve a union are referred to commonly as‘non-union’ collective agreements.

64New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 58-75
As a result, Australian CAs are analogous to New Zealand’s former (ECA) system of ‘collective
contracts’, though the similarity is stronger between non-union CAs and ‘collective contracts’, as
there are institutional mechanisms by which unions can get involved in negotiating Australian CAs
that never existed under New Zealand’s ‘collective contracts’. In 2000, the New Zealand law waschanged so that only unions could make collective agreements, and these unions had to be registered
for that purpose.
The threat of a non-union agreement is sometimes used in Australia to reduce the bargaining powerof unions, or to pre-emptively thwart union organising or bargaining campaigns (as industrial action
is illegal while even a non-union CA is in place). Occasionally, an employer extends an agreement
originally agreed to be a handful of employees to cover a whole new function with hundreds of staff,
though this can be the subject of litigation.
Complexity
Perhaps the main other distinctive feature of the Australian CA system is its legal complexity. The
provisions on CAs in the Fair Work Act occupy over 75 pages (90 sections), and those on industrial
action (which can only legally be taken in negotiation of a CA) occupy another 46 pages, not counting
those relating to remedies and enforcement. Even the provisions on secret ballots (ss 435-469), while
not quite as extensive as those under Work Choices, occupy 24 pages of the statute book – far morethan in, say, the comparable UK statute. The CA provisions contains twice the number of pages of
those in New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act. The legislation seeks to impose requirementsthat are both complex and not common in other collective bargaining systems. For example, unions
are prohibited from engaging in pattern bargaining (specifically, the terms of a proposed CA may not
be the same as those in another CA), though no comparable prohibitions are placed on employer
behaviour. Over time, development of these provisions has come to be seen as increasing restrictions
on the right to strike (McCrystal, 2019). Outside the Anglophone countries this is unusual. Althougha majority of countries have seen a movement towards greater decentralisation, this generally has notbeen accompanied by widespread reductions of the right to strike; overall, the international trend has
been to maintain stability in the right to strike or even liberalise it (Peetz, 2016).
The interaction between bargaining and awards
The interactions between bargaining and the underpinning modern awards and bargaining vary by
sector, as discussed later.
One general interaction, though, warrants consideration now. In most countries, the terms ofagreements continue until a new one is negotiated, and this was typically the case in Australia until
recently. However, changes in employer behaviour and tribunal decisions took advantage of a change
introduced in WorkChoices, later amended slightly, allowing employers in most circumstances (andfollowing a tribunal hearing) to terminate an agreement after its expiry (that is, once it exceeds its
formal duration). Consequently, minimum employee conditions fall back to the those in the award.
In most industries, the effect can be quite substantial. In 2015, a privatised railway corporation usedtermination of the CA to remove redundancy entitlements that were higher than those applying
elsewhere. Since then, they have been used in major cases in coal, university education andconfectionary manufacturing to enhance the power of employers. Rarely, however, do employers
actually reduce pay to the rates applying in the award; the greater significance is in the impact of thethreat to do so and the opportunity for unilateral flexibility that it provides.

Individual contracts
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Employers have mostly been entitled to pay employees above minima specified in awards andagreements, but until the mid 1990s, any such individual contracts could not be in conflict withawards or agreements in any respect. This changed after the Liberal-led coalition government won
national office in 1996. Its new WRA imposed limitations on union actions, and enabled statutory
individual contracts (‘Australian Workplace Agreements’ or AWAs) that could be inconsistent withawards or CAs.
In early 2006, the ‘WorkChoices’ legislation abolished the ‘no disadvantage’ test by which registeredindividual and collective agreements had been assessed and approved, replacing it with five minimum
standards, and privileging AWAs over CAs, for example, by enabling them to override CAs at any
time. Although many comparisons had correctly been made with New Zealand’s ECA, there werealso fundamental differences: while the ECA was radically deregulatory, WorkChoices was radicallyinterventionist and detailed, with over 2,600 pages of legislation, regulation and explanatory
memoranda. The Liberal-Nationals coalition lost the 2007 election, with WorkChoices possibly the
key issue (Spies-Butcher & Wilson, 2008). Labor’s Fair Work Act replaced it, and though Labor was
defeated in 2013, the lingering political effects of the 2007 election defeat, and difficulties in passing
legislation through the Senate, meant the incoming Liberal-Nationals coalition made few subsequent
amendments.
As a result, individual contracts again must be consistent with (i.e. no worse to the employee than)
the relevant awards, CAs (if applicable) and the NES. It has been possible, since the Fair Work Act
was passed, to have working time arrangements that differ from the award if certain requirements for‘individual flexibility arrangements’ are in place, but it is not possible to pay hourly wages below
those specified in the award.

Coverage of various instruments
The main source of data on coverage of instruments in Australia is the ABS employee earnings andhours publication (EEH), based on data collected through a survey of employers. It showed that, in
2018, just under 23 per cent of non-managerial employees had their pay determined by awards, with
40 per cent covered by collective agreements and 37 per cent on ‘individual arrangements’(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018). Some of those on individual arrangements would be on pay
rates only slightly above the award (over-award payments), with most of the rest of their conditions
determined by the underpinning award.
Award and collective agreement coverage
The incidence of reliance on awards (and other instruments) for pay setting by industry for nonmanagerial employees is shown in Figure 5. Award reliance (that is, payment of wages equal exactly
to the award wage) varied by industry, with the highest reliance in accommodation and food services(45 per cent), administrative and support services (41 per cent), health care and social assistance (38per cent) retail trade (30 per cent), and ‘other services’ (38 per cent).
The highest rates of CA coverage were in public administration and safety (83 per cent), educationand training (79 per cent), electricity, gas, water and waste (63 per cent), health care and social
assistance (52 per cent), and transport, postal and warehousing (48 per cent) (Australian Bureau of
Statistics, 2018). Econometric analysis showed that the major factors associated with higher CA
coverage in 2016 were public sector employment, union density, and employer size (Peetz & Yu,
2018). While these factors helped explain industry variations in coverage by instruments, employer
agency also made a difference.
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Figure 5: Method of setting pay by industry, Non-managerial employees, Australia, 2018.
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018

Non-union agreements have never covered a large number of employees. From 1998 to 2006, a
fairly stable one tenth of agreement-covered employees had been on non-union agreements under
the Workplace Relations Act (Peetz & Yu, 2017; White et al., 2001). Before WorkChoices, they
were rarely offered in well organised union workplaces, and were often used to easily effectchanges to hours, but sometimes to exclude unions (Briggs & Cooper, 2006). WorkChoices madenon-union agreements more attractive to employers while making it more difficult for unions tonegotiate agreements, particularly to undertake industrial action in support of union demands, andnon-union CAs rose to as much as a quarter of CA coverage by 2009, before declining thereafter.
As a proportion of the total workforce, non-union CAs covered approximately two per cent from2000 to 2006, growing to six per cent by 2009 (after many employers had sought to gain coverage
by non-union agreements before the WorkChoices provisions were repealed). Coverage by nonunion agreements then fell to 2.5 per cent of employees by 2016 – some 11 per cent of CA-covered
employees (Peetz & Yu, 2017).
Wages and instruments
The relationship between awards and CAs also varies between industries, partly reflecting employer
agency. Figure 6 shows average hourly earnings for workers on awards and CAs by industry(industries are ranked from low to high average wage). In most industries, CAs paid well above theaward, with average hourly wages in CAs across all industries 43 per cent higher than hourly award
wages. In retail trade, however, the average under CAs were only five per cent above those underawards while in accommodation and food services, average CA hourly wages were 12 per cent below
average award wages. This reflected particular strategies by the parties in those industries. In retailtrade, large employers negotiated CAs with the major retail union that paid quite close on average to67New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 58-75
the award, such that some major CAs were challenged for failing the ‘better off overall test’ (BOOT)(Schneiders et al., 2016). In hospitality, many employers have used non-union CAs covering lowwage employees in place of awards: from 2014 through to mid-2016, 47 per cent of employees under
CAs in accommodation and food services were on non-union CAs, compared to an all-industry
average of 11 per cent over that period (Department of Employment, 2017). In health care and social
assistance, CA wages were only 16 per cent above award wages, reflecting the constraints ofgovernment financing, while the almost equality of awards and CA wages in public administrationreflected the fungibility of these instruments there (some state public administration agreements getlabelled as awards).

Figure 6: Average hourly wages by industry and method of seting pay, Australia, 2018
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018

The incidence of awards reported by EEH is likely to underestimate the influence of awards, as those
employees whose pay is above the award, but is set by reference to it, are treated as covered by‘individual arrangements’. The FWC undertook its own major survey in 2014. It also surveyed
employers about their main method of setting pay. It implied that 37 per cent of employees were on
enterprise agreements (close to the EEH figure), 28 per cent on individual arrangements excluding
over-awards, and 36 per cent on award-based arrangements; of the latter group (or at least those about
which data could be obtained), almost three quarters appeared to be award-reliant (employees were
paid exactly the award) and a quarter on over-awards (that is, roughly nine per cent of all employees
were on over-awards, if such extrapolations are valid) (Fair Work Commission, 2015).
Awards as industry extension mechanisms
Are awards like industry-wide CA extension mechanisms seen in other countries? This was arguably
the case up until the early 1990s. Before then, union-driven wage increases were reflected in awards,
and awards were used to then spread those union-driven wage increases across the rest of the (awardcovered) workforce. The typical strategy of a union would be to focus on what were called ‘hot spots’(e.g. in an oil refinery, or a large metals manufacturing company), obtain an increase in wages (or an
improvement in other conditions) through collective bargaining there (or an arbitrated outcome), and68New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 58-75
then persuade the tribunal to increase the award to spread the benefit to the rest of the workers coveredby that award. It, or other unions, would then seek to have other awards increased to match theincrease in the initial award, and the tribunal would usually be persuaded to agree. The Metals
Industry Award was usually seen as the ‘pacesetter’ award, though sometimes other awards would
perform that function.
That all changed from 1991, and further changes since then have reinforced the distinction. With theshift to ‘enterprise bargaining’, those increases obtained in ‘hot spots’ have been manifested asenterprise agreements, and never directly translated into awards. If the same union or other unions
wanted to spread the union gain in wages achieved in a ‘hot spot’, they had to negotiate otherenterprise agreements.
Awards do not play a role in that process. Instead, while award rates are increased (or at least
examined) once a year in the annual wage reviews (referred to for a time as ‘safety net’ cases), there
are many factors taken into account by the tribunal in determining the level of wage increases,
including inflation, unemployment, the rate of wage increases in the rest of the economy and theneeds of the low paid. The idea that going rates in Enterprising Bargaining Agreements (EBAs)
should form any benchmark for awards is eschewed.

Effects
There has been substantial controversy over the effects of the award system, and a full considerationof its effects would be too extensive to be encompassed in this article. However, the following points
can be made from various studies over the decades.
Generally, it seems that wage relativities have historically been more compressed in Australia thanin several other countries (Brown et al., 1978; Norris, 1980; 1983; Rowe, 1982). Arbitration has
ranged, at varying times, from being ‘accommodative’ of market forces (Romeyn, 1980) to producing
quite different outcomes (Dabscheck, 1983). At a given balance of power between labour and capital,
the award system probably had only a small impact on that balance of power between labour andcapital, and hence on the overall wages share, but it probably produced a more compressed wage rate
structure than the market (which included collective bargaining) would have created.
In general, closer proximity to regulation enhances gender pay equity, provided the content of theregulation differs from (is less sexist than) the norms of those in power (Peetz & Murray, 2017), andthe award system appears to have enabled the relatively rapid introduction of equal pay for work ofequal value, following two major decisions by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration
Commission (ACAC) in 1969 and 1972. Australia’s rank on gender pay equity improved substantiallywith their implementation (Gregory et al., 1986). With the move to single-employer bargaining, thegender gap in hourly wages paid has not reduced further. This is also consistent with the international
pattern whereby more decentralised wage systems tend to be associated with wider gender pay gaps
(Whitehouse, 1990; 1992). The gender pay gap amongst award-reliant workers is close to zero in
EEH data; the gap is larger amongst workers on CAs and substantial amongst workers underindividual arrangements (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018; Peetz, 2007). That said, the award
system has not always acted to promote gender equity. For the first half of the 20th century, it simply
institutionalised the undervaluation of female-dominated occupations (Charlesworth & Macdonald,2017). The more recent problem for tribunals has been that, with wage fixing dominated by CAs or
individual arrangements, the tribunals have only limited influence, especially within organisations
already paying above the award. Where tribunals have had an influence (such as in health and social
care), substantial gains in women’s relative pay have also relied on government financing, such as
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two billion AUD announced in 2011 to fund pay equity increases in social and community services(Baird et al., 2012).
The employment effects of the award system are highly contested, though debate has mainly reliedof the very extensive international literature on the effects of minimum wages – a literature that is too
extensive to go into here (the few Australian award studies include Belchamber (1996). In its 2017wage case decision, the tribunal concluded, on the basis of that research, that modest and regular
wage increases do not result in disemployment effects and observed that its own “past assessment ofwhat constitutes a “modest” increase may have been overly cautious, in terms of its assessed
disemployment effects” (Fair Work Commission, 2017b, p. 2)
On productivity, while most studies have concerned collective representation (such as through CAs)
compared to some other benchmark (e.g. Hancock, 2012; Hull & Read, 2003; Quiggin, 2006) periodsof Australian policy dominated by individual contracting have had no better, and in all likelihood
have had worse, productivity outcomes than periods dominated by collective bargaining or even byawards (Peetz, 2012). This is consistent with evidence suggesting that the quality of employment
relations, rather than the existence of a particular workplace regime, has a bigger impact on workplacelevel productivity (Black & Lynch, 2001). The wages policy regime appears to have a larger impact
on equity than on productivity, though the indirect impact on productivity is relevant. Despite theexpressed views of many employers and their representatives (Rasmussen et al., 2016), productivity
is driven more by technology, innovation, skills, and education (Engelbrecht, 1997; Greenwood etal., 1997; Jorgenson & Vu, 2010) – and in Australia’s and New Zealand’s case, even geographicalisolation (Battersby, 2006; McCann, 2009) – than by industrial relations arrangements in themselves.
Evidence, including from New Zealand, suggests that upskilling workers helps stimulate productivity(Maré & Fabling, 2013).
Recent controversies in Australia regarding Modern Awards have focussed around several issues.
One is reductions in weekend premiums (‘penalty rates’) and the effects on unsociable work, pay andemployment in the retail and hospitality sector. Another has been the low rate of wages growth(something not restricted to Australia). Perhaps the most media exposure has been achieved throughpublicity about non-compliance with award wages and other forms of labour exploitation (Ferguson,
2017; Ferguson & Toft, 2015). Equally notable has been the complexity of the system – not due toawards themselves, but to the requirements for bargaining and industrial action, and theinternationally unusual legal impediments to the use of multi-employer bargaining. The Australiansystem contains a lot of detailed statutory restrictions and requirement on parties engaged in industrial
action. For example, prohibitions on ‘pattern bargaining’, as occurring under current legislation, areboth asymmetric and inconsistent with approaches in most other OECD countries. It is an oddity that,while awards have been simplified, the process of collective bargaining has been made remarkably
complex in Australia. There is no requirement that simplification of one should be linked tointensification of complexity in the other.

Some recent relevance to New Zealand
From the 1990s, the relevance of the award system to New Zealand seemed very limited. However,recent events regarding multi-employer wage setting have changed that. Since the change ofgovernment in 2017, interest in Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs) has emerged, and the Labour
government indicated its interest in pursuing their development. Although, at the time of writing, thefate and details of any such policy was unclear, the broad idea of FPAs has been to create a form ofmulti-employer (mostly industry-wide) wage determination, through some agreement between
unions and employer bodies, that would set the floor for wage rates that could be contained inagreements, and encourage such things as skills development and training. A working group,70

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 58-75
comprising of union, employer and government representatives and chaired by a former conservative
politician, recommended an implementation model; the government released a discussion paper; andthe Council of Trade Unions proposed a refined model. The final shape FPAs take, if any, including
such matters as the role of arbitration if agreement is not reached, is yet to be determined (Fair Pay
Agreement Working Group, 2018; Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, 2019; New
Zealand Council of Trade Unions, 2019). The Australian system of awards does not provide much in
the way of guidance as to how a system of FPAs should be administered, but it does show that multiemployer wage minimums can be established, operate quite smoothly, co-exist with enterprise-levelbargaining, and indeed allow for skill-based relativities.
More generally, the low median wage in New Zealand (typically around a quarter lower than inAustralia) has been a source of concern. A seemingly generous minimum wage (presently around 65
per cent of median wages, making it higher than in most OECD countries) has not pushed up the
median wage. Here, the skill-based relativities in Australian awards are relevant, in that they set
minimums for a range of workers, not just those at the bottom. Even though awards set actual rates
for declining proportions of workers as hourly wages rise, they still set a floor for many middle andlow income workers who are not adjacent to the minimum wage.
While, from 2008 onwards, conservative New Zealand governments amended legislation to, among
other things, constrain collective bargaining (Rasmussen et al., 2016), probably the most importantchanges concerned gender inequity in pay for some female-dominated occupations. These occurredin response to the Court of Appeal’s Terranova decision, concerning equal pay for a group of agedcare workers in 2014. The government legislated, in 2017, to raise minimum wages for such workers.
This was linked to its provision of major financial support to employers in the industry, without whichmost would have been unable to afford the higher rates of pay. It was reminiscent of cases in Australia
in which tribunals’ ability to raise the award rates for some female-dominated occupations has
depended on government willingness to fund them. Many ostensibly private sector activities areultimately financed by, and dependent upon, the state, and governments have saved money by being
able to pay female workers low rates based on undervalued work. Remedying the undervaluation of
female-dominated work has required coordinated action in both the budgetary and industrial arenas– the latter occurring, in Australia, through awards and, in New Zealand, though legislation.

Concluding remarks
Overall, it appears that there are equity benefits from the system of multiple minimum wage rates inAustralia. They, in effect, protect workers of varying skill levels who lack individual or collective
bargaining power, but usually give no special reprieve to inefficient employers and so enable a more
efficient allocation of capital than if wages had no floors underpinning them. The system has also
allowed some progress on pay equity, though it allowed much more in the past when awards weremore important. To the extent that parties experience costs through state interference in theiractivities, in recent times, these appear more associated with the processes surrounding collective
bargaining than the award system itself, especially now that the award ‘modernisation’ process seems
complete and to have, at some cost to the representatives of the parties, exhausted itself.
In New Zealand, awards are now a distant memory and often the term itself is used negatively. Having
been abolished, there is little prospect of the tribunal-based award system being reintroduced in New
Zealand; it would be too institutionally disruptive. However, the idea of a series of skill-basedminimum wages (or minimum wages based on the qualifications required for a job) is not so farfetched for any country with a minimum wage and a system of collective bargaining. Since a
consistent skill-based relativities structure on awards was mostly established in the late 1980s inAustralia, it has been quite stable. As collective bargaining and unionism weakens in many countries,
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 58-75
and the question of protection of wages for lower- and middle-income earners (not just the lowestpaid) becomes politically more salient, policy-makers could consider the potential relevance of skillbased relativities to national minimum wage systems. Moreover, the introduction of a system of skillbased relativities could assist productivity in two ways. First, tying wage progression to skill
acquisition could enhance the skill base of the workforce and hence its capacity for working moreproductively. Second, skill-based relativities could prevent low-productivity employers from paying
low wages to skilled workers and force them to improve productivity to remain competitive. Whileother factors are heavily influential, we still would expect skill-based minimum wages to have apositive impact on productivity.
Skill-based, industry-level regulation would be unlikely to provide a new means of extending thebenefits of collective bargaining to workers elsewhere in an industry. This is because of the likely
gap between ‘award’ wages and CA wages in any system in which CAs coexisted with, but wereconsidered superior to minimum protections established through skill-based, industry-level
regulation. That said, the effects of skill-based, industry-level regulation on other objectives, such as
improving equity, might make such mechanisms attractive.

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Managers’ Perceptions of Artificial Intelligence and Automation:
Insights into the Future of WorkBENJAMIN MROWINSKI*, DAVID BROUGHAM** and DAVID TAPPIN***
Abstract
The impact of Artificial Intelligence and Automation (AIA) on the future of work has been the subjectof significant amounts of discussion from scholars, business people, governments, and scientists. The
purpose of this research was to explore managers’ perceptions of AIA, and how they think it will
impact the future of employment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 high-level
managers, six from the private sector and five from the public sector, all of whom are responsible forthe recruitment and management of staff. All 11 managers predicted AIA would cause considerable
disruption across the employment relations landscape and that the number of workers performing
certain tasks would decrease through replacement with AIA. One of the key concerns raised by the
managers was the level of uncertainty around the type of new jobs that may emerge as a result of AIA.
The participants recognised employees may build up greater job responsibility as a result of AIA,
including overseeing the automation of processes. The managers further discussed the importance ofvaluing employees through developing reskilling initiatives in expectation of AIA impact. This reportadds a much needed insight into AIA from the perspective of managers as this view is very limited todate.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Future of Work, Managerial Perceptions

Introduction
Many commentators have suggested that we are on the cusp of a new industrial revolution, situatedwithin a transformational era where we are becoming capable of incorporating more automatedprocesses into business operations. Research to date has primarily focussed on the impacts Artificial
Intelligence and Automation (AIA) is likely to have on the future of employment (Frey & Osborne,
2017; Walsh, 2018), and whether the up-and-coming automation capabilities will remove human
employees from the labour process. The capabilities of AIA are still in the developmental stages, with
the Gartner Hype Cycle (Panetta, 2018) outlining several currently hyped technologies that are five to
10 years away from production, including Blockchain, Biochips, Autonomous Driving, and Artificial
General Intelligence. However, with hype building around AIA, it is critical to start addressing theimpact it may have on employment so we can better prepare for the ways in which it will impact theworkforce.

Much of the discussion and research around what the future will look like comes from futurists. This
study, however, looks at managers who have a direct relationship with the staff they manage, andfocusses on addressing the question: What are managers’ perceptions on the impacts of AIA and how
is this relevant to employment relations in the future? Understanding managers’ perceptions is basedon the premise that we cannot predict the impact of AIA on employment without understanding how*

PhD Candidate, School of Management, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand***
Associate Professor School of Management, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand**76

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91
the end users, such as organisations and managers, will potentially incorporate and adopt AIA intobusiness operations. This research is fundamental towards recognising the influence AIA will have on
businesses and employees, and what this ultimately means for employment relations at the workplaceand organisational levels. As there is a limited amount of research literature on managers’ perceptionsof AIA impacting employment, this study goes some way towards addressing this need.

Background
Historical Impact of Technology on Employment
The impact of technology on employment has been a reoccurring phenomenon throughout history.
Ashton (1948) and Toynbee (1969) identify the mid-1700s as the first prominent period oftechnological disruption on both the workforce and the social landscape, causing this period to be
defined as an ‘industrial revolution. To date, it is widely accepted that an industrial revolution has
occurred in three instances (Schwab, 2017): firstly, with the introduction of steam power in the mid1700s; secondly, with the introduction of electricity in the mid-1800s (Craft, 1996), and – mostrecently – in the mid-1900s, with the emergence of computerisation. Subsequently, these disruptions
caused widespread distortion across both the employment and social landscape, with workers’ lifelong
skills, experiences, and way of life made redundant in favour of reducing labour cost while boostingproductivity and output capabilities throughout agriculture, factories, and the service sector (Outman& Outman, 2003; Shah & Mehta, 1998).
At the time of the first and second industrial revolutions, it was perceived that factories were taking
over workers’ jobs. However, this began to shift when factories started to introduce new jobs andskills (Rumberger, 1981), which contributed to a social shift from rural to urban areas of living(Outman & Outman, 2003) with the prospect of finding work as a result of the new incoming
technological capabilities (Goldin & Katz, 1998). Despite the negative impact on employment at thetime, each industrial revolution also introduced momentous social changes across the employment
relations spectrum, including new policies to protect workers, the establishment of unions (Outman &Outman, 2003), and the securing of rights to the eight-hour workday (Gunton, 1889). Technologicalchanges dramatically changed the nature of work and the social landscape: in earlier revolutions, large
proportions of the working population moved from farms to factories; and the service sector becamea prominent industry amidst the development of computerisation in the 1950s (Autor et al., 1998).
Despite the emergence of computerisation in the 1950s, it was not until the 1970s that computerisation
caused significant disruption throughout the workforce (Shah & Mehta, 1998). According to Cortada(2006), management initially adopted the use of computers to improve business operations, reduce
operating costs through labour saving initiatives and improve customer services. Management was byno means immune to the impact of technological disruption which largely saw middle management
positions disestablished (Shah & Mehta, 1998) due to the significant organisational restructuring
designed to accommodate the capabilities of computerisation (Drucker, 1993; Shah & Mehta, 1998).
The process of re-engineering the organisational structure in the 1980s witnessed the streamlining oforganisational processes which saw a shift from paper-based processing to computer-based processing(Autor et al., 1998).
The rise of computing also had a substantial social impact through streamlining customer services,such as changing the way people access money through ATMs (Cortada, 2006), and introducing
customer capability to buy airline tickets over the internet without having to go into see an agent orover the phone (Shah & Mehta, 1998). Subsequently, the shift to computer-based processing gave rise77

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91
to new jobs such as computer programmer, website creator, and computer technician. At the sametime, this shift saw the loss of jobs in typing pools and assembly lines, alongside jobs involving
secretarial tasks and switchboard operation (Volst & Wagner, 1988). Volst and Wagner (1988) also
indicate that employees with wider skill sets were preferred: the job of specialised typist, for example,
has transitioned in the modern-day position of personal/executive assistant or office manager (Onifade,2009).
The impact of computerisation and automation within the manufacturing and agricultural industries
saw a further shift of workers to the service sector which represented three quarters of all jobs by the
1980s (Plunkert, 1990). With the emergence of AIA, we are now witnessing another transition which
may have a profound effect on many aspects of the way we currently work, with research to datehaving taken steps to estimate the impact AIA may have on the workforce (Frey & Osborne, 2017).
Predictions on the arrival of Artificial Intelligence and Automation
There is a general consensus that employment is going to be impacted through the introduction of AIA.
Frey and Osborne (2017) estimate that around 47 per cent of employment will be affected byautomation in the United States alone within the next two decades. The arrival of functional AIA has
been the object of speculation, with Walsh (2018), for example separating expert and non-expert
expectations. Experts predicted a 50 per cent chance of having fully functional AIA by 2065, while
non-experts anticipated that AIA would be available much sooner, with a 50 per cent chance of its
being fully functional by 2039. The relevance of understanding such predictions goes a long way
towards preparing businesses and employees for the potential impact that AIA will have on
employment relations. However, we do not need advanced technology, such as artificial intelligence,
to displace workers from jobs. Global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that“50% of current work activities are currently automatable by adapting currently demonstrated
technologies” (as cited in Manyika et al., p. 2). Manyika et al., (2017) indicated that automating
specific tasks within certain occupations is currently achievable, but fully automating an entire
occupation is less than five per cent achievable with current technology. For example, mainstream
technologies such as self-checkouts, online forms, and smart phone apps are already having an impact
but are still some time away from replacing an entire occupation. Despite this, a continued lack ofsocial acceptance of technology is a barrier to its full integration into the workforce (Perakslis & Wolk,
2006).
Fraedrich and Lenz (2016) define the process of social acceptance as something which can vary
dramatically over time as social expectations and norms change. When Walmart introduced radiofrequency identification (RFID) in the early 2000s, it was not accepted by the public. Perakslis and
Wolk (2006) have associated lack of social acceptance around RFID with low consumer awarenessand concerns pertaining to privacy and personal rights protection. Since then, Amazon has introduced
Amazon Go, which is a transaction-less supermarket (Golden, 2020), which uses computer vision,
sensor fusion, and deep learning to automatically detect when a shopper enters the supermarket, takes
an item off the shelf and walks out to pay without the need of a checkout (Amazon, 2020). Although
the technology in Amazon Go differs to RFID, the similarity indicates how social acceptance has
shifted from monitoring in the early 2000s to present day.
Reflecting on the Industrial Revolution and the gradual influence it had on employment (Outman &Outman, 2003), similarities can be established with the introduction of AIA, which is predicted to bea gradual process (Panetta, 2018). Warwick (2015) further alludes to the progressive impact AIA will
have on employment relations, with the expectation that AIA will initially be dependent on human
support and supervision to function. Whether or not AIA will ever be capable of performing without

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human supervision is yet to be seen; even so, we are already beginning to see the impacts of basic AIA
and smart technology on the workforce, with real concern rising around what this means for the futureof employment.
Industry Susceptibility to Artificial Intelligence and Automation
The rise of organisational investment in technological development has resulted in an unprecedented
level of uncertainty around the overall effect this development will have on the workforce and thesocial environment (Virgillito, 2017).
Frey and Osborne (2017) address lines of employment within the transportation and logistics industries
as being highly susceptible to the introduction of AIA. We are already witnessing the significance of
AIA in transportation and logistics, with driverless trains operating in South Korea and other parts of
the world (Railway Technology, 2012) and autonomous driving level 2 already in the distribution
phase. Harner (2017) outlines autonomous driving level 2 as a vehicle with assisted steering andacceleration functions, which still requires a driver to be alert and take control of the vehicle ifnecessary. It is estimated that autonomous driving will progress to level 5 after 2028 (Pollard, 2019).
This level means that all driving tasks will be controlled by the vehicle system, with no humaninteraction required at all – not even a steering wheel (Harner, 2017). Autonomous driving level 5 is
expected to have a significant impact on employment across the transportation industry.
Dolata (2008) characterises the technological impact of AIA into two distinct groups: anticipative andsmooth adjustments; and reactive and crisis-ridden patterns of change. The current situation of AIA
within the transportation sector represents a clear illustration of the technological and social divide.
On one hand, workers in the industry such as taxi drivers are reactive to autonomous driving, while
society is anticipative of the technology (Maurer et al., 2016). Since the introduction of smartphone
applications, such as Uber, which use ride-hailing technology to pre-calculate taxi fares (Dudley et al.,2017), taxi drivers of the standard metering system have taken a reactive approach, protesting
throughout the United States, Europe, United Kingdom, and Asia (Mulholland, 2014) and calling to
ban Uber (Burry & Gordon, 2016). Despite resistance from taxi drivers, there has been regular social
approval of ride-hailing technology. Subsequently, Dudley et al. (2017) have labelled ride-hailingtechnology as a successful disruptive innovator as a result of the conflict between workers in theindustry and social acceptance of the technology (Fraedrich & Lenz). The introduction of autonomous
driving has seen a continuation of a reactive approach towards sectoral adoption of autonomous
driving, with the Licenced Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) organising large demonstrations inprotest against autonomous driving and ride-hailing applications (Tovey, 2016). In addition to social
barriers, incidents such as the death of a pedestrian involving a self-driving Uber car (Rudgard, 2019)
raise further barriers to autonomous driving. These barriers are related to the attribution of ethicalliability if an autonomous car is involved in an incident, and have the potential to slow down
adoption/development of autonomous driving (Taylor & Bouazzaoui, 2018).
Other than transportation and logistics, Davies (2017) identifies the service sector as one of the most
likely employment industries to be impacted by AIA due to routine tasks being highly susceptible toautomation. This has already become apparent in retail with self-checkouts, government departmentswith automated call centre operators, banks with smart ATMs, automated accountancy platforms, andgeneral back office automated tasks. Social acceptance of AIA has already had a profound impact on
the employment landscape, where technology has enabled greater convenience for customers in areas,such as online shopping and banking. Online banking can be considered basic technology, yet it has
already had a widespread effect on employment, with bank branches across New Zealand closing and79

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reducing hours (Parker, 2017) due to customers having greater accessibility through mobile apps,
online banking, and smart ATMs.
Prior to improved technological capabilities of the last decade, this would not have been possible. The
nature of business is changing; what this means for employment relations is changing along with it.
Even so, there is still limited clarity on managers’ perceptions around the impact of AIA on the futureof employment. Much of the knowledge regarding the future of work has been produced by scientists
and technologists without addressing how businesses and managers intend to incorporate and use AIA
in business operations.
Managing Employee Skill Sets Through Industrial Change
The development of AIA for market availability is far from an instantaneous process, with both thecreation and adoption of AIA expected to take several years (Agrawal et al., 2018). The relevance thishas on employment relations corresponds to organisational strategy to prepare both management andemployees for any potential change in skill sets that AIA is likely to cause as a result. One of the more
recent historical comparisons is the introduction of computer-based technology in the 1980s (Ben-Ner& Urtasun, 2013). While the use of computer-based technology dates back to the 1980s, the mostsubstantial change happened between 1970 and 1998. This period of change was characterised by anaccelerated adoption of computerisation in conjunction with a rise in worker skill set (Autor etal.,1998). In this skill-based technological change, computer technology changed both the nature ofwork and the skill sets required to perform the work (Ben-Ner & Urtasun, 2013). Skill-based
technological changes shifted the nature of work from paper-based processing to computer processingin the late 1980s, introducing an increased use of computers which – in turn – required an increase inworker skill set to perform nonroutine cognitive tasks (Autor et al., 2003). The ability to predict the
impact that AIA is likely to have on employee skill sets is no simple task (Agrawal et al., 2018), but itshould not act as a barrier, discouraging organisations from preparing for what it could mean for theirorganisation and for the potential impact on employment relationships, working conditions, and work
prospects.
Autor et al., (2003) encourage the adaption of AIA, which they argue presents an opportunity to lessen
the demands on employees by automating less cognitive, time-consuming tasks, and an opportunity toopen the door for employees to develop deeper processing skills. Organisational strategy isconsequential in that it measures the consequences of business decisions in future employment
relations (Warwick, 2015). For example, if organisational strategy calls for cost reduction by reducing
human capital through introducing AIA, one can expect to see staff reductions. However, if the strategy
is to focus on burden reduction or process efficiency, one could expect to see AIA taking over several
tasks and freeing up employee time to work in different areas of business operations (Habakkuk, 1962;
Warwick, 2015).
Ultimately, automation is close to taking over some tasks, but we are years away from AIA replacing
large proportions of the workforce, with both human integration and supervision still required to make
AIA functionable (Michalski et al., 2013). There are certain applications where new occupations willbe created to offset new technological capabilities introduced by AIA (Walsh, 2018). The concern thisraises, however, is whether the skills that workers have today will be relevant for the future. Decisions
made by organisations to adopt AIA should be as transparent as possible to provide employees with
ample time to reskill if such training is required to expand their employment opportunities, rather thanusing redundancy as the primary solution (Agrawal et al., 2018). Lavigna (2014) addresses one of theissues businesses might face around reskilling employees, where employees’ lack of motivation has
the potential to form barriers to upskilling, especially in occupations that already require a low skill

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set. Experts identify individual skills as one of the key indicators linking employees to job loss
susceptibility where repetitive and less complex jobs (Frey & Osborne, 2017) increase the likelihoodof exposure to AIA taking over some form of task. Research on employee insights into the future ofwork (Brougham et al., 2019) provide a much needed perspective into how staff perceive technology(i.e., AIA) impacting their future career prospects. Managers’ perceptions offer the other side to thespectrum which is currently unaccounted for in the literature.
What AIA means for the future of employment relations
Research to date has predominantly focussed around acknowledging the general impact of AIA on
employment (Frey & Osborne, 2017), with limited explanation or research into how managers intend
to incorporate AIA or further address employment relations issues that will arise as a result. The
method managers and businesses use to implement AIA can be expected to have diverse consequencesin employment relations, subject to the organisational strategy behind incorporating such technology.
Managers’ perceptions hold immense value towards understanding and evaluating the purpose ofincorporating AIA. Whether it is to reduce tedious tasks, develop employee skill sets, promote a
healthier work-life balance, or achieve cost reduction, we can expect to see some form of impact acrossthe employment relations landscape in the future. The present study aims to give insights into how
managers view the future of work in relation to employment so we can better understand how the
relationship between the organisation and workers may develop as AIA continues to develop. This isimportant because, in 2018, 66 per cent of directors across New Zealand discussed how AIA could
impact their organisation (Patterson, 2019), this is an increase from 2016 where over 40 per cent of
New Zealand organisations were “considering investment in robotics or automation over the next year”(Smylie, 2016, p.1).

Methodology
Eleven semi-structured interviews were used in this study to explore managers’ perceptions of AIA
and its impact on the future of work. Participants in this research were identified through purposive
sampling (Bryman & Bell, 2015). The criteria for participation required participants to be responsible
for the hiring and management of staff, with a general understanding and knowledge of employment
relations. No prior knowledge of AIA was required to participate in this research.
The interviews were conducted in New Zealand between December 2018 and January 2019. Out of
the 11 managers in this research, two worked for a small to medium-sized organisation with 20-49
employees, three worked for a medium-sized organisation ranging between 50 and 99 employees, andsix worked for a large organisation with over 100 employees. No participants identified themselves asworking in a micro or small business with fewer than 20 employees. Managers in this research
represented a total of seven different industries; five managers were from the public sector; and six
managers from the private sector.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91
An overview of participant information is provided in table 1 below.
Participant

Industry

MP1
Business and Finance
MP2
Education
MP3
Business and Finance
MP4EnergyMP5Transportation
MP6
Architecture
MP7
Healthcare
MP8Business and Finance
MP9Transportation
MP10
Information Technology
MP11
Healthcare
Table 1: Participant Information

SectorOrganisation Size

PrivatePublicPublicPrivatePublicPrivatePrivatePrivatePublicPublicPrivate

Large
Large
Large
MediumMedium
Small
Small
Large
Large
Large
MediumInterview Questions
The present study used semi-structured interviews to collect insight into managers’ perceptions of AIA
and what this means for the future of work. The interview structure consisted of follow-up and probing
questions.
A sample of the interview questions included: (1) What is the likelihood AIA will be integrated into
your organisation or department once it is available? (2) Out of the employees you currently manage,
how do you perceive your capabilities of hiring and retaining staff will be impacted through theintroduction of AIA? (3) How do you envision the future of the workforce is likely to look like IF AIA
is fully integrated into business operations?
Procedure
The data were collected and analysed using thematic analysis with an inductive approach. The
emergence of themes was constantly being monitored throughout the interviews, and data saturation
was recognised to have been achieved within the 11 interviews included in this research (Guest et al.,2016). All audio recordings were transcribed by the lead author, and the participants were provided
with a copy of the final transcript to validate it. The evidence of data saturation and interpretations ofthemes are presented in the results section of this research to clearly distinguish between participants’
responses and our interpretations of them (Shank & Brown, 2007; McGregor, 2018).

Results and Discussion
The results of this research introduced managers’ perceptions of AIA and what this ultimately means
for the future of work. Managers addressed how AIA could be used to enhance business operations
while at the same time recognising what AIA could mean for employees’ job prospects in the future.
The managers’ insights were distilled into six themes through thematic analysis outlined below.
Theme 1: Cost-effective solutions through integrating AIA

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91
The managers identified cost savings as one of the initiatives for incorporating AIA into business
operations. This presents a serious challenge for employment relations in the future where we can
expect to see jobs made obsolete because of AIA capabilities. Some of the managers’ comments
include:“The speed of being able to do complex tasks and the cost as well. There is a lot less cost, so it’s faster,
more accurate, and costs less than human employees.” - MP11“The initial cost is massive, but you don’t have to pay people to do things, you don’t have to pay
wages.” - MP4“If you’ve got five staff on one hundred thousand, and robotic process automation costs you a quarterof a million, you can save money.” - MP2“It takes 1,500 or 2,000 medical coders to transcribe all the records... if we can get the transcription
done by machine... there goes 1,800 of those people.” - MP10The correlation between technology and cost saving has been a continuing trend throughout history.
Cortada (2006), for example, reiterates how managers in the 1980s introduced computing technology
into organisational operations to reduce operating costs and to enhance efficiencies.
Theme 2: Enhancing Organisational Efficiency
Respondents emphasised organisational efficiency as one of the driving forces behind exploring thecapabilities of AIA. This was primarily due to managers perceiving AIA to be capable of performing
at a much higher rate than humans, and with fewer errors:“I see it as more useful and about efficiencies. The number of efficiencies gained would be where you
make your wins.” - MP1“It just helps do things a lot faster. Efficiency is probably the main thing for us.” - MP11
“In terms of what drives an organisation to explore or introduce and adopt new technology,
fundamentally it’s about efficiencies.” - MP3
Manager MP3 also felt that AIA would change the nature of work for employees as well:“With machine learning and advanced AI, you could reduce a lot of the burden such as paperwork.”- MP3
Managers in this study indicated that AIA is likely to be used for efficiency gains, and this observation
corresponds with other prominent periods of technological disruption. The 1970s to 1980s saw a shift
from paper- to computer-based processing which enhanced efficiencies for business and customers(Autor et al., 1998). This shift ultimately also saw the loss of several sectors such as assembly line,
secretarial tasks and switchboard operators. With managers identifying efficiency gains as one of the
primary incentives for adopting AIA, there is an increased likelihood of significant technologicaldisruption across the workforce. Frey and Osborne (2017) predict that as many as 47 per cent of jobs
will be impacted as a result of AIA.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91

Theme 3: AIA Is Not the Solution for Every Scenario
Research to date predominantly focusses on industries that will be impacted through the integration of
AIA into the workforce without understanding the organisational agenda behind incorporating AIA
and what this will mean for employment relations. The managers alluded to this saying that simply
because a technology is available does not guarantee it will be incorporated into business operations:“That client service element …there is lots of client bots. I can’t ever imagine us using them. I think
there is always that client service element that will be required.” - MP8“[… whether] efficiency is a problem for that organisation or not. Now that will vary from one
organisation to the next, one business to the next. If you look at a more commercial private sector lens,
it varies between industry to industry as well.” - MP3“You cannot substitute [a human] and send a robot and tell somebody who’s got brain tumour they
only have three days to live... you can free up a lot of the roles of nurses and doctors from theiradministrative burden.” - MP3“There is so much manual stuff you have to do to see if they are eligible. I can’t really see how you
would gain a huge amount of efficiencies with automating.” - MP2
MP11 further indicated how certain industries, such as those where creativity is involved, are lesssusceptible to AIA due to the difficulty of AIA performing creative tasks:“I feel like a lot of creative fields won’t get as heavily impacted as the logic-based ones because
computers are not good at getting things wrong; they are good at getting things right. A lot of creativity
goes around getting things wrong and trying new things.” - MP11
Levy (2018) addresses the importance of understanding organisational agenda rather than simply
assuming AIA is going to have an industry-wide impact.
The current debate on ‘the future of work’ or ‘jobs at risk of automation’ seems to implicitly
adopt a pure science-push view, which assumes a path for technology driven by what science
makes achievable, rather than what is needed by firms (p. 394).
To understand what impact AIA may have in organisations, we must first identify the reasons fororganisations to adopt AIA rather than assuming every organisation or business will do so simply
because it is available.
Theme 4: Managers’ Predictions of Industry Susceptibility to AIA
One of the leading themes that emerged in this research is managers’ predictions of industry
susceptibility to AIA and what this means for the future of employment relations. Automotive andfront-line customer service sectors were at the forefront of managers’ expectations as to AIA influence.
Additionally, managers expect that businesses will develop relevant employee skill sets if business is
impacted by AIA, as opposed to resorting to redundancy.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91
Automotive
The managers identified employment within the automotive industry as very likely to be affected dueto the rising capabilities of autonomous driving:“It doesn’t take one person to manage one automated taxi. One person might be able to manage afleet of 2000 automated taxis.” - MP10“Bus drivers potentially…they would be all on a designated self-piloted route to time.” - MP5“Self-driving cars and taxis… you can share cars and send them, and they will come pick you up anddrop you off, and you don’t even need to have a driver.” - MP1
It is anticipated that this will be one of the most AIA-susceptible industries, with the automotive
industry regularly featuring in the media in relation to self-driving cars and the expected capabilities
of autonomous driving level 5 which enables the vehicle system to drive completely autonomously
without any human interaction (Harner, 2017).
Frontline customer service
The managers identified customer service positions as another industry/occupation susceptible to theimpact of AIA implementation in business operations:“In the call centres and branches where actually people do not need as many staff.” - MP1“Because the checkouts and all this sort of stuff, you don’t need as many people.” - MP4“The service stuff like the way that you see, we no longer have to deal with someone at the gas stationor McDonald’s counter if we don’t want to.” - MP10
“You’ve got to kind of find that fine balance where customers can do their own stuff, but where they
can also have human support if they need.” - MP1“We will have a system that people can log in, and they can answer questions themselves, and it does
it for them…Because at the moment, we have people that do that.” - MP10
Kim et al., (2014) outline the impact that self-service and customer independence has on employment
where “the customers can actually perform the work that an employee might otherwise perform, andthus the customers actually replace an employee” (p. 256). Given the prevalence of these types of jobs
within the New Zealand context, it is reasonable to expect to see a continual impact on employment
towards more customer-integrated services, leading to a reduction in the workforce within the industry.
Theme 5: Organisational Initiatives to Enhance Employee Skill Sets
Responses from the managers outlined solutions to minimise the impact of AIA on employment. Oneof the key themes that emerged was the importance of organisations taking responsibility to develop
employee skill sets in other areas of business operations as a method of minimising the impact on
employment relations:85New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91“If you are suddenly saving one million dollars because you have a robot that can do a job of ten
people and in half the time with zero errors, I would expect most companies will put five hundred
thousand dollars of that into training people doing things we still need them to do.” -MP1
“What it will mean is that actually people in those roles will be able to re-train, and I think a lot of
people want to do that… you will have people who will want to specialise in something or move into a
different department.” – MP3“… potentially having a programme where you can identify a cohort of people in your business who
might want to retrain in another department.” - MP9
The managers did not consider themselves immune from the impact of AIA; they identified theimportance of continuously adapting their own skills sets as AIA continues to develop:“What it means for me is my skills will need to constantly evolve and adapt.” - MP9“Adapting. If I look back to when I was your age, thinking about how the career design has changed
for two decades, it’s made me keep catching up.” - MP5
Given the strong indication from the managers that adopting AIA for cost-saving and efficiency
purposes would be a good idea, we think that investing in employee skill sets goes some way towards
minimising the impact of AIA on employment relations. It is also likely that new jobs will be createdas the introduction of AIA creates a need to develop new skills (Manyika et al., 2017). However, thisposes certain challenges, for example, employees may be resistant to the idea of reskilling into different
areas of business operations, especially when moving from a non-technical role into a technical one as
required or imposed by managers:“Job descriptions will probably evolve to reflect the changes that have happened as a result of
adopting new technology.” - MP3“We are going to need people who are more savvy in terms of being able to look behind thetechnology.” - MP8
Theme 6: Reduction in the Working Populace
The managers also raised concerns over AIA resulting in the displacement of workers and leading tolarge-scale unemployment.
“The obvious picture is that eventually there are too many people and not enough work because ofwhat AI can do… because you don’t need as many people.”- MP4“They are talking in certain areas of a fixed wage or a living wage being given to the populace.” MP4“We need to work through with the greater society, I think there is going to be a massive breakdownwith things that we don’t have.” - MP5“I don't think we can create as many new jobs as we can remove.” - MP10

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91“It is going to be different from what we ever expected because of how quick we are moving; we are
not going to be able to guess what that is accurately. I think a lot of jobs we have now won’t exist inten, twenty years.” - MP11
Not all managers predicted mass unemployment, with MP11 addressing it as a period of adjustmentthat will be required to develop the necessary skills which the marketplace demands:“I don’t see it as suddenly there will be a mass of unemployed. There will be a period of adjustment
for all of us where we have to reskill and move into different areas and into different careers.” - MP11
“It is just a question of when these things will be accessible to us. It could just be around the cornerand overnight.” - MP9
This raises a large level of uncertainty pertaining to the future of employment, with managers
predicting large-scale unemployment. If this does eventuate, it will be paramount that we continue to
conduct further research to understand whether this will be a long-term or temporary phenomenon as
the labour market acclimatises to the impacts of AIA, with reskilling to meet changes in work as wellas the potential creation of new work.
MP11 addressed the complexity of predicting the future, citing previous industrial revolutions leading
towards new and unimaginable outcomes.
“I don’t think it’s easy to guess what future jobs there will be. At the moment it’s kind of guessing.
Before the Industrial Revolution, everyone is basically farmers, then they suddenly start massproducing things. Then we became office workers; I don’t think anyone predicted that we would besitting in front of computers all day, not going outside at all.” - MP11
Our experience of previous industrial revolutions indicates that technological developments havelargely contributed to wide-scale disruption across the employment relations landscape. However, as
new jobs emerged, labour laws and regulations were developed to match the changes. To what extent
is this the case with AIA is yet to be seen. It will depend on our evolving understanding of AIA
capabilities as well as how managers and businesses intend to develop initiatives to minimise AIA’s
impact on work and employment relations.

Conclusion
The results from this research indicate that managers expect AIA to result in instability across theemployment landscape. The interviewed managers identified cost-saving and efficiency as primary
incentives for investing in AIA, which they predicted would result in a substantial reduction in
employment numbers in the future. One of the methods the participants identified to offset the expected
impact on employment is to reskill employees in other areas or tasks within business operations. This
presents an opportunity for both employers and employees to collaboratively develop interesting work
(Burchell et al., 2014) in addition to reducing burdensome aspects of work for employees. The resultsof this research indicate that, if the organisation’s primary objective of introducing AIA is to reduce
cost and ultimately employee numbers, we can expect to see a breakdown in employment relations.
However, as managers have indicated, technological adaptability is important: simply because a formof AIA exists does not guarantee it will fit within business operations. From this aspect, it is imperative
to develop effective solutions for incorporating AIA into business operations, such as the capability of
AIA improving work for employees as opposed to strictly reducing staff numbers.

87New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 44(3): 76-91

The significance of this pertains to managers and businesses achieving and maintaining good faith in
the employment relationship through effective social dialogue with the workforce concerning the
introduction of AIA. From this point, discussions can be formulated between the manager andemployee to develop initiatives utilising employees’ skill sets within business operations if
employment is expected to be impacted as a result of AIA.
Concerns raised by the managers involved in this research identified the susceptibility of certain
industries and what this ultimately means for employment relations in the future. Managers addressed
specific concerns regarding the automotive industry where we can expect to see a large shift towards
autonomous driving services in the future. There are high expectations regarding the capabilities of
AIA, and it is likely that employees will ultimately be automated out of work once the technology
becomes available and ubiquitous.
This research aimed to understand managers’ perceptions around AIA and what this means for the
future of employment. While this research might not offer conclusive decisions on how to minimise
the impact of AIA on employment, it introduces the importance of social dialogue to collaboratively
manage the impact of AIA on work and employment relations. The results signal the need to further
explore how this collaborative process will occur and the role of all stakeholders in ensuring thetransition to AIA-based work is a smooth one.

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human-machine

divide.

In Beyond

Artificial

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