Labour process perspectives on employee voice

This chapter discusses debates within the labour process tradition on voice. It aims to review and develop the historical positions on participation and involvement that can inform new thinking in the field. The chapter starts with a brief history of the influence of labour process debate on employee engagement, in particular providing an outline of Harvie Ramsay’s work on ‘cycles of control’, a concept that underpins research on the labour process. Discussion follows waves in the labour process tradition, informed by key challenges, arriving at insights on contemporary working patterns including digital labour and new perspectives on workplace identity. The chapter recognizes that recent work within the labour process approach provides meaningful and robust conceptual and methodological contributions to research on voice, particularly in terms of the interrelationship between the roles of individual actors and broader structures in the articulation of employees’ workplace struggles.