An Academic Perspective of the Evolving Interdependence
of Internet and Employment Relations

From Publishing on the Line: Proceedings of the Third Annual World Wide
Web Symposium, Hong Kong (May 7-10): 106-120.

Richard L. Hannah
Author's Homepage
Document address
Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/HongKong.html

---------------------------------------------------------------
Richard L. Hannah, Ph.D. 		Tel:  615-898-2228
Department of Economics and Finance 	Fax:  615-895-7580
Box 27					E-mail:  RLHANNAH@FRANK.MTSU.EDU
Middle Tennessee State University.  
Murfreesboro, Tennessee USA   37132   

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Keywords
	Employment relations, industrial relations, human resource
management, labor relations, employee benefits, discussion lists,
world wide web, electronic publishing, online text.

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Abstract
	The intended users of this document are researchers, teachers, and
students who seek perspective on the evolving academic interdependence of
the Internet and employment relations.  The objective is a baseline
description of the online evolution of employment relations, the
presumption being that future scholarly inquiry will benefit from an
"eyewitness" recording of this branching of academic activity.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction

	Having been displaced by commercial growth, academic preeminence
on the Internet is no more.  However, this relative shrinkage need not
blunt the pioneering nature of academics to advance knowledge about, and
through, this medium. A significant feature of this continuing challenge is 
very traditional, pushing out the knowledge boundary and distributing the
newly acquired intellectual bounty.  But the field of play has changed,
and expertise in electronic inquiry and discourse is emerging as a
standard requirement, not only of faculty but also of top flight
professionals.

	Within academia, the application of information technologies has
matured and now presents interesting challenges to the traditional
arrangements for the production, packaging, and distribution of
educational documents.  The full potential of infrastructures that are
functional in the new electronic environment may be conditioned on
breaking up many traditional relationships among academics and academic
publishers, and forging new bonds to accommodate changing standards of
technical presentation, of scholarly review, and of pedagogy.  This
document explores these phenomena, but confines the context to the field
of employment relations.  

	I have found that the best way to advance into the unknown terrain
of the Internet is that of the pioneer--venturing forth, often without
intellectual compass or map, but comforted by intellectual intuition.
This intuition is anchored in experience and study from the perspective of
the academic discipline of employment relations, and how the open medium
of the Internet adds new dimensions to the pragmatic and intellectual
heritage of this field.  

	While recognizing that much of the online activities (e.g., union,
labor activist, and human resource management issues and practices) is not
derived from academic initiative or inquiry,  educating students for
critical evaluation of this kind of material is an academic duty.
Furthermore, analysis of the evolution of one's professional niche in this
relatively new medium is a legitimate academic research interest, 
especially because the Internet is a catalyst for radical departure from
traditional conduits of thought.

	Organizationally, the next segment reviews the origins and status
of online materials for employment relations.  An experiment with an
online "textbook" is then discussed, accompanied by an online demo of the
text.  The third part summarizes the traditional academic principles which
are still very applicable in the Internet environment, and those which
present new challenges.  As the literature citations indicate, these
issues are relevant to the broad spectrum of online publishing.  However,
conclusions are limited to the field of employment relations to keep
proper perspective of the implications. 

Origins and Status of Online Employment Relations

	In the context of this document employment relations is construed to 
include the many segments of a highly fragmented field of study.  In the
U.S. this academic smorgasbord includes Industrial Relations, Human
Resource Management, Collective Bargaining and Unions, Labor Economics,
and many other more narrowly defined specializations, such as Industrial
Organization/Psychology, Compensation, Employee Benefits, and Human
Resource Development.

	Inquiries directed to Internet veterans in this academic field
indicate that initial online efforts were about 10-12 years ago.  The
pioneers were largely motivated by the necessity of their remote locations
in New Zealand, Canada, and Australia, and by the intriguing teaching and
learning possibilities.  This was particularly emphasized by academics
focused on the international subfield of the discipline.

	The sequence of expansion into additional dimensions was not
unusual relative to other disciplines, generally following the technical
evolution of the Internet, which is extensively documented. [HREF1]  The
following list is illustrative of activity progression, but would vary
with respect to personal interests, computing resources available, 
technical skills, motivation and incentives.

	E-mail
	Discussion Lists: founding, managing, or participating
	Conferencing
	Data or Document Access and Acquisition
	Personal Web Pages
	Course or Other Instructional Web Pages
	Professional Web Pages (Meta-Pages)
	Online Journals
	Online Books or Book Supplements

	The status of academic applications within the above activities is
of varied intensity.  But sufficient accumulated experience, examples, and
research do exist to offer some insights.

E-mail

	The targeted inquiry to and response from expertise on the net can
be a very intellectually stimulating environment that generates ideas
worthy of preservation and incorporation into more formal documents.  The
convenience of electronic archiving, retrieval, and editing for publication is
unsurpassed enticement to archive for anticipated publication, or simply
tracking the many thoughts of momentary inspiration which dash across our 
screens each day.  Rather than belabor the prospects here, I will
elaborate in the next section on discussion lists, getting more directly
at the pooling, preserving, and publishing of knowledge and experience
relevant to employment relations.  Noteworthy is that even if online
activity is confined to e-mail, the ease of correspondence, inquiry, and
even collaboration via the Internet has clearly offered intriguing options
to faculty for domestic or international networking. 

Discussion Lists

	Discussion lists are a natural extension of e-mail and are very 
popular among employment relations practitioners and academics.  The 
electronic pooling and blending of academic and practitioner knowledge 
offer a new and potentially very productive vitality to both intellectual 
pursuit and practical problem solving.  Many lists, especially those 
maintained in the U.S., while founded by academics, have drifted toward
practitioner forums.  Still, from a teaching perspective, such resources
can add a unique "real world" application for students.

	Previous research by this author indicated about 10,000
subscribers to employment related discussion lists. [Hannah, 1997a]  To
gain a different perspective, comparisons were made to earlier data
gathered in January of 1996 [Hannah, 1997b] for a core of (same list) growth 
rates over an approximate 15 month period ending in March 1997.  While a
crude measure, the growth rate indicated was 18 percent for nine lists,
the aggregated subscribership increasing from 5,981 to 7,043.  However,
many new and more specialized lists were founded, or become
known to me in this period.  An accounting of these lists yields even
more dramatic estimates of the totality of subscribers, approximately
22,000 world wide.  A "list of lists" is accessible [HREF2], and
descriptive data are reported in The Academic Union of Internet and
Employment Relations (tentative title). [HREF3]

	While there are some notable exceptions, most discussion lists
electronically archive every message posted to the server.  Clearly, even on 
very serious lists the volume of useless information (or noise) in
messages is considerable.  My probing of list archives lead me to 
postulate the rule of thumb that "useful information equals the cubed root
of information volume."  Still, for academic inquiry, this may not be a
prohibitive ratio, especially if researchers are familiar with archive
search and inquiry tools.  

	While a huge reservoir for information, list archives are not a place 
where original research findings or research databases are recorded.  The
use of archives for publishing possibilities lies in three areas.  One is
their historical record specifically as related to Internet transactions
of thought, a likely candidate for ambitious dissertations of the future.
Second is their more immediate identification of exemplary insights and
information from authoritative sources.   The third use can be 
characterized as ephemeral publishing.  To date, in the study of 
employment relations I know of only one employment relations text that has
an integrated the online retrieval of key word searches of list archives.
This is an electronic supplement to a human resources text. [Milkovich and
Boudreau, 1997, and HREF4]  While not original science, this adaptation is
original pedagogy.  Thus, in the profession of employment relations
this is a very good example of how discussion lists can be instrumental in
integrating practical issues and problems into the academic objectives of
courses.

Conferencing

	The best example of this kind of online activity has been the
Solinet project sponsored by the Canadian Union of Public Employees. 
[HREF5]  Invited participants with password access post messages on a
predetermined topic for a predetermined period of comment.  A running log
is maintained on each topic.  This record can then be accessed at any time
by the participants.  While more cumbersome than the near real time
exchanges of discussion lists, the archiving and access for review is
greatly simplified, and initiated only by the demand of the user.  To
date, these conference sessions have generated about 75-100 messages each
(per month), but as an experiment, this project is quite interesting and
has certainly generated an international composition of participants.  The
1997 topics in this enterprising effort include the following.

	Labour and the Internet (January)
	Internet and Labour in the Third World (February)
	Technology and Organizing (March)
	Labour Movements in the World (April)
	The Russian Labour Movement (May)
	Education in the Global Economy (June)

Data or Document Access and Acquisition

	In the U.S., the teaching, research, and study of employment
relations rely heavily on government data and reports.  In the past
five years the federal government has taken dramatic steps to place more
and more information online, a very good example being the Bureau of
Labor Statistics. [HREF6]   The transformation and inclusion of free and
public domain sources in online academic publications should not be
problematic from an institutional perspective.  From a technical perspective 
this is a valuable resource for online texts with links to data files or
links cited as sources in hard print text documents.  Unfortunately, as of
this writing hard print employment relations texts remain mostly devoid of
electronic sourcing.

	Actually, I think the greatest payoff may be in the potential
elevation in the quality and efficiency of student learning through the
convenience of access to data and scholarly sources from home, work,
campus, public library or other facility.  This online educational
dimension is becoming ever more crucial in the educational environment in
which institutions like mine function.  Students' allocation of time for  
work, family, education, and commuting place a high premium on convenience,
flexibility, and time savings.  

	A potential problem of course is an errant dependency on links to
other organizations' sources.  Given the dynamics of server reliability
and document or file path changes, access to online publications may
suffer considerable degradation over time.  Of course a static version of
the source may be captured, but then the verification, timeliness and
maintenance of information becomes resource intensive, unless one adopts
the "living text" approach--a sort of ongoing, online version of
traditional print new editions.

Personal Web Pages

	As academics we have not shunned vanity pages, and there are a few
elaborate pages with interesting descriptive information about courses and
other substantive academic activities.  Examples of these can be accessed
from the document, Industrial Relations People with Web Pages. [HREF7]
Like everyone else, we in the U.S. started with our own homepages.  In
employment relations, the effort then evolved in three directions next
described.  

Course or Other Instructional Web Pages

	One path in the continued evolution has been the development of
elaborate course pages--e.g., syllabi with embedded links to electronic
lectures or original sources.  There are actually not very many examples
of this level of development. [HREF8]  This is a serious academic 
deficiency.  The potential efficiencies inherent in electronic conveyance
of course content and online resources to inquiring students, and the
possibilities of integrating this kind of academic information with
published term schedules and catalog materials are considerable. 

	A caveat is that an overloaded web page, especially for students
who are Internet novices, can be very disorienting.  Simply adding more
links because they are available is not reasonable or productive when a
traditional text is still required.  One preferred solution would seem to
be the ability to convert from electronic media to a custom published hard
print media on demand, essentially eliminating the need for traditional
texts.

Meta-Pages

	The second path has been the development of "professional resource
pages," i.e., meta-pages [HREF9].  If publishing can be interpreted as
making documents available to the public, then these pages fit this
category.  But they are not scholarship.  At this stage they are
essentially information about information.  However, a well organized and
maintained page is arguable as creditable professional or public service 
required by the institution, a common element within the mission
of U.S. universities.

	Furthermore, the evolution of meta-pages has tended toward a
highly incestuous cross-linking.  The high maintenance cost in time for quality
pages and the academic condition of high credibility have not spawned many
pages which fit this niche.  The test of credibility has essentially been
electronic word of mouth.  

Specialty Pages

	These kinds of web pages have a more narrow but greater depth of
resources within specific employee relations subfields.  The originators
represent a wide professional variety, such as academics, consultants,
professional organizations.  Examples include employee benefits [HREF10],
employment law [HREF11], and international labor information [HREF12].

Online Journals

	There is only one example currently known to this author of a full
text online journal an with employment relations orientation.  This is the
_Electronic Journal of Radical Organization Theory_, published from the
University of Waikato in New Zealand [HREF13]. 

	The remainder of online journals do not provide full text of
articles but instead stick to a teaser format. [HREF14]  The prospects for
more full text online journals depend on existing hard print journals
developing a financially sustaining advertising format, or relying on
continued membership dues or donor contributions.  Password protected
access can also be conditioned on organizational membership.  The problem
with the latter approach is potential competition from the development of
new and credible journals that are freely available and administratively
built on a very low cost electronic model of production, which
offers the academically appealing benefits of speedy peer review and
publication.

	A third prospect is the purchase of online versions of journals
by libraries.  This system is rapidly evolving in the U.S. with  services
that allow students remote access to full text articles online through a
university account. Articles can be downloaded and easily edited,
which raises the usual issues of plagiarism and intellectual process.

	My own university uses a service which appears sufficient
for a wide range of undergraduate research in employment relations.
However, a significant technical limitation is the text only
configuration.  Given the wide variations in hardware, software, and
connectivity remotely employed by students, this lowest common denominator
of transmission is not likely to change in the near future. 

Online Books and Book Supplements

	There are no credible examples of full text online books about
employment relations.  However, there are a few intesting documents
which may represent first steps in this direction.  The first is a short
document, _The Trade Union Movement and the Internet_  by Marie Dancsok.
[HREF15]  As the title implies this text documents the transformation of
trade unions made possible by electronic networks on the local and global
scale.  The organization of the text is straightforward, with hypertext 
references.

	The second text, _The Labour Movement and the Internet_, is by Eric 
Lee. Chapter summaries of this work are accessible.  [HREF16]  As in
Dancsok's work, the focus is implications of the Internet for organized
labor, especially within the context of an international network.

	The third text, _Human Resource Management_ by George Milkovich
and John Boudreau (previously cited), is not actually online, but outlined in
chapter form with a password protected adopters' network which supplements
the text.  These features include online exercises.  The reference web page 
for this text is maintained by the publisher, Richard D. Irwin.

An Online Text Experiment

	As alluded to earlier, this document is a bridge to a more
comprehensive effort to develop an online text. [HREF17]
Tentatively titled, _The Academic Union of Internet and Employment
Relations_, the work will include more original data links and a more
encompassing exploration of broad themes, e.g., the potential of Internet
to reconfigure the employment relations niche of the academy by offering a
greatly enriched array of research, teaching, and learning opportunities.

	Intentions are to exploit the electronic format by keeping this
text open to suggestions and critique for a substantial period of time.
Hopefully this experiment will draw commentary not only directed at
content improvement, but also at the implications of the experiment itself
with respect to issues of academic incentives, publishers' interests, and
recognition by academic institutions.  Some of these issues are explored
in the next section which briefly reviews some online literature about
online scholarship.

Principles of Scholarship and Academic Service

	The basic quality checks for scholarship, such as authoritative
citations [HREF18] and peer review standards [HREF19], are similar in the
hard print and electronic environment.  However, the potential of speed,
the prospect of ongoing and inclusive critique in publications, and the
parity and hierarchical development of electronic scholarship with hard
print scholarship are aspirations held, but as yet unrealized.  Specific
to employment relations, there is little evidence of a critical mass of
scholars prepared to push this agenda.

	With respect to research enhancement, the Internet has in many
respects already become a vastly superior tool for descriptive inquiry of
federal data files, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics being a primary
example.  At a minimum, familiarity with these kinds of resources should
be required of undergraduate and graduate students of employment
relations.  Beyond this activity, the pervasive impact of information
technologies in general, and Internet in particular, on employment
relations is fertile research ground melding practitioner interests
(digital work) with academic interests (digital knowledge).

	I believe we need to consider the prospect of interaction of the
Internet with teaching and learning dynamics from the perspective of
creating an electronic infrastructure.  More broadly interpreted this
would include multi-media, distance learning, and smart classrooms.  The
evolution of the technology in this context allows us freedom to
experiment with in-class time, and hopefully find more productive ways to
stimulate learning.  This dual consideration obviously requires some
practical changes in quality control--e.g., changes in testing philosophy,
writing and presentation, and remote collaboration and research by
students.  These practicalities have been documented elsewhere. [HREF20]

	Internet has expanded the possibilities for professional and
public service often required of faculty members.  The authorship of web
pages, management of discussion lists, and creation of online databases
represent significant offerings among academics involved in employment
relations.  The recognition of these contributions within the context of
faculty evaluation is an entirely different and unresolved matter (at
least in the U.S.).

	Commercial interests must ultimately be considered in the
emerging mix.  Let's pause for a moment to think hypothetically about an
online text.  Could this kind of effort be financed by embedded
advertisements, say for specific chapters.  Does this logic extend
to journals, newsletters, proceedings, and other academic publications?  

	Another option might be the brokering of online working papers.
That is, authors could deposit them in a central location, and journal
editors could browse them, tendering offers to print.  Custom publishing
textbooks seems a natural for the browse-select-print activity.

	Of course, all this is rather futuristic, and maybe wishful,
thinking.  But we must keep our academic eye on the ball and consider the
prospects of a profound explosion in the knowledge market, the engineering
of which would in my opinion be the best legacy of this generation of
educators.

Conclusions

	To reasonably evaluate the reciprocal academic influences of
Internet and employment relations, I think even novices could clarify many
of the implications by simply asking, what would be missing without this
technology?  We would likely agree that convenience, speed, and expanded
access are a given.  But has this really changed what academics do in the
field of employment relations?  I think not for the majority of faculty in
the field.  But there is a significant and growing number who are
integrating Internet applications into their teaching and research agenda.
The broader conversion may ultimately be driven by the numbers of students
who demand instructional support through  this medium.

	From my perspective as an associate professor in a regional state
university, I am convinced many advantages once only available to top tier
institutions now accrue to us all.  In the chaos of the Internet
opportunities are less constrained by financial resources or institutional
status.  One focus of academics in this medium should therefore be the
elevation of chaos to the inspired chaos of a creative and accelerated
learning environment.

	Clearly, the ability to communicate with experts in employment
relations, or any other field, on an international scale is a major step
toward a global thought exchange and the creativity in research and
teaching to which this contributes.  Discussion lists offer a blended
dynamic of academics and practitioners which is ripe for creative new
applications in teaching, learning, and practical problem solving.
Perhaps the most interesting electronic collaborations of the future will
be of an academic-practitioner rather than intra-academic nature.  Also of
interest is the interfirm exchange of information on discussion lists, and
the interdisciplinary mix for academics.  Arguably, even intradisciplinary
collegiality is being redefined to extend far beyond institutional or
departmental boundaries.  These reconfigurations of academic community
also include students who roam the net and cultivate exchanges with
academicians at institutions other than the one in which they are
enrolled.

	If we accept the life-long learning model in the world of work,
then synchronization with the changing educational environment is crucial.
These work and education dynamics would seem to have a great deal in
common within the field of employment relations.  The evolution of
distributed work (and education), archaic policies with respect to
information technology use for work (and education), and breaking down of 
traditional relationships in employment (and education) all follow a
common theme of change. 

	Unions now have a very useful tool to  solidify and build
consensus around their own interests.  On the other hand dissidents now
have a greater opportunity to pursue a more fractious agenda within
unions.  As academics we can better observe organized labor, and
other interest groups, who now publicize themselves and communicate
through the Internet.  How this may change public perception is unknown,
but this is another example of the electronic abundance of alternative
perspectives and of indicators of trends, even of global proportions.

	I remain convinced that commercialism will make more substantive
inroads into academic online publishing.  In fact this seems the only
viable economic solution to breaking the traditional barriers and
bottlenecks inherent in hard print media.  The potential market for such
materials may be a blend of students enrolled in academic courses and
practitioners of employment relations.  Such a development obviously
changes the focus of traditional text production.

	Finally, the role of credible government data and documents is
absolutely crucial in advancing the development of online publications.
The field of employment relations is blessed, at least in the U.S., with
high quality and abundant resources in this respect.  Thus, this role
government plays in the Internet dimension of education should not be
underestimated.  Efforts to privatize data, or otherwise restrict 
availability, would seriously harm this evolution.  To contribute to the
solution of pressing social and economic issues, academics need convenient
access to credible data.  This enhances the prospects for knowledge
creation, distribution, and use for the common good.

References

Hannah, Richard L. (1997a).  "HR Has a Committee of 10,000 on the 
Internet," _Employment Relations Today_, forthcoming.

Hannah, Richard L. (1997b). "The Emerging Significance of Internet
Patterns of Association," _Labor Studies Journal_, forthcoming.

Hypertext References

HREF1
Zakon, Robert H.  Hobbes' Internet Timeline.
Http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html
Click here.

HREF2
Hannah, Richard L.  Employment Relations Discussion Lists.
Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/erlists.html
Click here.

HREF3
Hannah, Richard L.  The Academic Union of Internet and Employment Relations.
Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/e_text.html
Click here.

HREF4
Milkovich, George and John Boudreau.  1996.  _Human Resource Management_
(8th ed.), published by Richard D. Irwin.  Online materials are at:
http://www.hr-education-gateway.com/miltextbook.html.
Click here.

HREF5
Canadian Union of Public Employees.  Solinet.
Http://www.solinet.org.
Click here.

HREF6
BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Http://stats.bls.gov/blshome.htm.
Click here.

HREF7
Budd, John.  Industrial Relations People with Web Pages.
Http://www.csom.umn.edu/WWWPages/faculty/jbudd/people.htm.
Click here.

HREF8
Hannah, Richard L.  Industrial Relations and Human Resources Page.
Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/IR_HR.HTML (select "course pages").
Click here.

HREF9
Hannah, Richard L.  Employee Benefits Resource Page.
Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/employee_benefits.html.
Click here.

HREF10
Baker, David.  BenefitsLink.
Http://www.benefitslink.com/.
Click here.

HREF11
Yancey, Will.  Employment Law.
Http://zeta.is.tcu.edu/~yancey/emp_law.htm.
Click here.

HREF12
International Labor Organization.
Http://www.unicc.org/ilo.
Click here.

HREF13
EJROT (_Electronic Journal of Radical Organization Theory_).
Http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/depts/sm&l/journal/ejrot.htm.
Click here.

HREF14
ILRR (_Industrial and Labor Relations Review_).
Http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/lib/pubs/ilrrev/.
Click here.

HREF15
Dancsok, Marie.  1996. The Trade Union Movement and the Internet.  A
project published in "book" format.
Http://www.gn.apc.org/labournet/sbu/internet.html.
Click here.

HREF16
Lee, Eric.  1997. _The Labour Movement and the Internet_.
Http://www.solinet.org/LEE/.
Click here.

HREF17
Hannah, Richard L.  The Academic Union of Internet and Employment Relations.
Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/e_text.html
Click here.

HREF18
Smith, Alastair.  Evaluation of Internet Information Resources.
Http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm
Click here.

HREF19
Amiran, Eyal, Elaine Orr and John Unsworth.  Refereed Electronic Journals
and the Future of Scholarly Publishing.  1991.
Http://jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU/~jmu2m/advances.html
Click here.

HREF20
Morrison, James L., editor.  Technology Tools for Today's Campuses
Http://sunsite.unc.edu/horizon/mono/CD/TECH-HTML/
Click here.

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