INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: EVOLUTION AND SCOPE

The focus of this paper was to provide an in-depth analysis of the nature and scope of industrial relations to determine the multidisciplinary dimension of the subject. It was found that the incident that led to the industrial revolution in the 18th century was the basis for employment relationships and this metamorphosed into industrial relations in today's modern world. To provide a vivid description of the contents of the activities involved in the employment relationship, some ideas were borrowed from other disciplines such as History, Law, Economics, psychology, sociology, mathematics, and Political Science. It was the contributions from other disciplines that suggested identity crisis which was found not to be true on account that the scope of industrial relations was distinct from that of other disciplines. However, these contributions provided a platform to understand the behaviours of the actors in the workplace, the place of government and society in the workplace as well as reactions to the economic needs of workers. It was concluded that industrial relations was a multidisciplinary subject in nature being a field of study centered around employment relationship populated and dominated by the human resource that is dynamic, inimitable, and a source of competitive advantage, thus, recommended that there is a need for industrial relations to rely on other disciplines such as Sociology, Psychology, Political Sciences, Management, Accounting, Law, etc. to obtain adequate knowledge that will ensure proper understanding of the human resource in the employment relationship settings.