Governance and Tripartism working paper series

Literature Review on the Governance of Work

This literature review focuses on the most influential and relevant developments in regulation and governance scholarship. In addition, it also draws on work undertaken in a range of complementary disciplines and areas, including industrial relations, political economy, labour economics, labour law and global labour studies

In recent decades, there have been fundamental shifts in governance both within the nation state and beyond, in the world of work and many other areas of policy. This publication presents key findings from the literature on innovative governance of work in practice. Dr. Tess Hardy and Sayomi Ariyawansa survey a wide range of theoretical perspectives on regulation and governance, challenges to governance, responses to those challenges and the interaction of public and private governance. The last of these is of particular significance in view of both the proliferation of private governance initiatives and also the challenges that the ILO has experienced in defining its own role in respect of corporate social responsibility.