Alan Fox (sociologist)
Alan Fox DFM (23 January 1920 – 26 June 2002) was an English industrial sociologist, who revolutionised the separate discipline of industrial relations.
Fox, who grew up in
eleven plus examination and — like most British working class children of his generation — left school at the age of 14. He worked first as a laboratory assistant at a grammar school and then in a photographic film
factory.
When the
North American Mitchell aircraft. Fox, who was promoted to Sergeant, received the Distinguished Flying Medal (RAF). After the war, Fox worked for the Forestry Commission
in Scotland.
In 1947–48, he undertook a diploma in public administration at
Nuffield College
and in 1963, he became a lecturer at Nuffield, in the Department of Social and Administrative Studies.
Fox rose to prominence with a 1966 paper, Industrial Sociology And Industrial Relations, written for the Donovan
Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations (1965–68). In it he described the dominance in industrial relations of two, rival ideological/theoretical perspectives.[4] The first, for which Fox coined the name "unitary" (later unitarist), denies that the interests of employers and employees were significantly different from each other.[5] For the other perspective, he used an existing term from political science: "pluralist", a perspective which suggests that multiple parties are involved in decision-making. However, Fox himself was strongly influenced by a third major theoretical position: the "radical" perspective, especially Marxism.[6]
With
Hugh Clegg
, Fox became prominent in a group of scholars known collectively as the "Oxford school of industrial relations". Although the Oxford school was frequently associated with pluralism, during the 1970s Fox adopted an overtly radical position. In "Industrial relations: a social critique of pluralist ideology" (1973) and Beyond Contract (1974), he suggested that unitarism and pluralism, in practice, were often combined and/or difficult to distinguish.
Major works
- Industrial Sociology And Industrial Relations (1966)
- "Industrial relations: a social critique of pluralist ideology" (1973), in Child, John, 1973 Man and Organization: The Search for Explanation and Social Relevance, Allen and Unwin, London.
- Beyond Contract (1974)
- History and Heritage: the Social Origins of the British Industrial Relations System (1985)
- A Very Late Development (1990; autobiography)
Footnotes
- ^ A. H. Halsey, 2006, "Fox, Alan (1920–2002), sociologist and industrial historian", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/77054> Subscription required. Retrieved: 27 September 2009.
- ^ Halsey
- ^ Halsey
- ^ Tony Topham, "Alan Fox" [obituary, The Guardian, Tuesday 6 August 2002. Retrieved: 27 September 2009.
- ^ Alan Fox, 1966, Industrial Sociology And Industrial Relations (Research Paper 3, Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations), London, HMSO, passim.
- ^ Topham
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