The system approach views industrial relations as a system of interacting parts. John Dunlop developed this approach in the 1950s. Key elements of Dunlop's system model include actors (employers, employees, unions/courts), contexts (technological, economic, societal), ideology, and rules. The actors interact and negotiate within this environment framework. Features include actors located within an environment, interacting/negotiating, and interdependence where no single actor can act autonomously. A stable system requires congruence between each actor's views of other actors' roles and the overall system. Criticisms include focusing on structure over processes, formal over informal rules, and being static rather than dynamic.

1. SYSTEM APPROACH-ACTORS
Submitted To: Presented By:
Prof. Luxmi Amrit

2. INTRODUCTION
The industrial relations can be viewed from various
angles which may range from the economic to
the social, political to the legal, psychological and managerial.
• For instance: an economist tries to interpret the problem of
industrial relations in terms of forces of the law of demand
and supply.
• So, Industrial relations cannot be understood by using any of
the approaches as they are not subject to objective enquiry

3. Approaches
There are 6 approaches:
• Psychological Approach
• Sociological Approach
• Human Relations Approach
• Gandhian Approach
• Human Resource Management Approach
• System Approach

4. Meaning
• The term "systems" is derived from the Greek
word "synistanai," which means "to bring
together or combine."
• A system is interacting as a structured
functional unit.

5. System Approach
• System approach is one of the significant theories of industrial
labor relations was put forth by John Dunlop in 1950’s.
• John Thomas Dunlop (July 5, 1914 – October 2, 2003) was was
was an American Administrator and Labor Scholar.
• Dunlop was the United States Secretary of Labor between
1975 and 1976. He was Director of the U.S. Cost of Living
Council from 1973–1974,

6. Participants in the Process
Following are the forces related to the system
approach:
• Participative Forces
• Environment Forces

7. Elements of Forces
a) Participative Elements
• Workers and the organization
• Management and their representatives
• Government Agencies

8. Elements of Forces
b) Environmental Forces
Dunlop identified three types of environment
forces that are relevant to industrial relations
• Technological characteristics
• Market or Economic constraints
• The locus and balance of power existing in a
society

9. Elements of System Model of
Industrial Relation-Dunlop
• The Actors in the system
• The Contexts of systems
• The Ideology of an Industrial Relations
System
• The Network or Web of Rules

10. Key Actors
The key Actors are:
1. Employers
2. Employees
3. Unions/Courts.

11. The Actors in the System
• A hierarchy of managers and their
representatives in supervision
• A hierarchy of workers (non-managerial) and
any spokesman
• Specialized government agencies (like labor
courts) created by the first two actors
concerned with workers’ enterprises and their
relationships.

12. Features
The features of the actors of system Approach
are:
• Locates within an environment .
• Interacts and negotiates with each other.
• Inter-related.
• Can not act Autonomously.

13. The Ideology of an Industrial Relations
System
• In the words of Dunlop, an ideology is a “set of
ideas and beliefs commonly held by the actors
that helps to build or integrate the system
together as an entity.”
• Its body of common ideas that defines the role
and place of each actor and the ideas that each
actor holds towards the place and function of
the others in the system.
• The ideology of a stable system involves a
congruence or compatibility among these views
and the rest of the system.

14. Shortcomings/Criticism
• It concentrates on the structure of the system
ignoring the processes within it.
• It focuses on formal rules to the neglect of
important informal rules and informal processes.
• It fails to give an account of how inputs into the
system are converted into outputs.
• It favours an analytical approach based on
comparison rather than a problem solving
approach.
• It is static, not dynamic in time.