The whispering shadow: Collectivism and individualism at Ikeda-Hoover and Nissan UK

Despite recent interest in the character of individual dissonance in the wo rkplace less attention has been given to the nature of collectivism in the context of restricted trade union behaviour. While findings on conflicts as sociated with collective practices have been given reasonable space these h ave tended to focus on the association between collectivism qua trade union s and the presence or absence of conflict. Moreover, where the relationship between conflict and individualism provide the focus of study, this often serves to herald the demise of forms of collectivism or collectivism in gen eral. The paper identifies three forms of collectivism in two Japanese manu facturing plants. These are; 'trade union collectivism'; 'work place collec tivism' and, the 'social collectivism of everyday life'. By moving away fro m the conflict-consensus polarity, the intention is to shift the terms of d ebate over the nature of individualism and collectivism in the context of L LPs. The perceived conceptual and empirical gap is not to be closed by high lighting only incidents of dissonance, whether individually or collectively construed.