1. Abstract
The Industrial Relations Event Scale (IRES) is a specialized psychometric instrument developed by E. Kevin Kelloway, Julian Barling, and Amar Shah (1993) to capture the occurrence and psychological impact of acute, episodic workplace industrial relations events. Adapted from the comprehensive 78-item Industrial Relations Life Event Scale originally devised by Stephen D. Bluen and Julian Barling (1987), the IRES provides an efficient, 25-item self-report inventory tailored for daily diary studies, event-sampling methodologies, and longitudinal organizational research. Grounded in Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman’s transactional theory of stress and cognitive appraisal, the scale rejects the simplistic assumption that all labor-management encounters are inherently deleterious. Instead, it employs a dual-valence cognitive appraisal framework across a 7-point bipolar response scale ranging from -3 (extremely negative impact) through 0 (occurred with no impact) to +3 (extremely positive impact).
Psychometrically, the IRES yields three distinct operational indices: (a) an Event Occurrence Frequency score reflecting the absolute volume of labor relations incidents encountered within a designated observation window; (b) a Negative Industrial Relations Stress score aggregating the magnitude of subjective distress elicited by adverse events; and (c) a Positive Industrial Relations Stress (or eustress) score reflecting constructive, morale-enhancing labor-management interactions such as fair representation, successful dispute handling, or democratic union processes. Because life-event inventories function as formative rather than reflective measurement models—where items constitute causal triggers of a state rather than manifestations of an underlying latent trait—conventional internal consistency metrics (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha) are conceptually inappropriate. Empirical validation demonstrates strong criterion-related, convergent, and discriminant validity: negative industrial relations events reliably predict adverse affective states, somatic complaints, and decrements in job satisfaction, whereas positive industrial relations events uniquely foster positive work affect and mitigate organizational alienation.
2. Keywords
Industrial Relations Event Scale, IRES, occupational stress, industrial relations, cognitive appraisal, union-management relations, daily diary design, formative measurement, job satisfaction, affective events theory
3. Authors
The Industrial Relations Event Scale was formulated and psychometrically evaluated by a distinguished group of organizational psychologists specializing in occupational health psychology, counterproductive work behaviors, and labor union dynamics:
- E. Kevin Kelloway, Ph.D.: Canada Research Chair in Occupational Health Psychology and Professor of Psychology at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Dr. Kelloway is an internationally recognized authority on workplace mental health, occupational safety, leadership styles, and structural equation modeling in organizational behavior.
- Julian Barling, Ph.D.: Borden Chair of Leadership and Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stephen J. R. Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Barling is a pioneering scholar in the psychological study of trade unions, the behavioral consequences of work-related stress, and the etiology of constructive and destructive leadership.
- Amar Shah, M.Sc.: Researcher in organizational psychology and human resource management associated with Queen’s University, whose empirical research focused on the daily micro-processes of labor relations disputes and employee subjective well-being.
4. Purpose
The primary purpose of the Industrial Relations Event Scale is to operationalize, quantify, and differentiate the multifaceted stressors and uplifts that emanate directly from labor-management interactions within unionized or contested workplace environments. While general occupational stress research historically focused on broad, chronic, and ambient workplace characteristics—such as role ambiguity, role conflict, workload, and physical working hazards—industrial relations processes represent unique, episodic, and frequently volatile socio-political events. Labor negotiations, grievance procedures, disciplinary hearings, and union elections possess distinct psychological dynamics that chronic job strain inventories fail to capture. The IRES fills this critical diagnostic and empirical gap by providing a targeted, event-level assessment tool.
From an applied perspective, the IRES serves multiple research and organizational functions:
- Capturing Micro-Level Daily Fluctuations: Rather than forcing employees to retrospectively summarize months of generalized organizational climate, the IRES is optimized for daily diary, experience sampling methods (ESM), and ecological momentary assessment (EMA). This allows researchers to capture short-term affective and behavioral spillover effects that occur immediately following contentious or collaborative industrial events.
- Disentangling Objective Occurrence from Subjective Cognitive Appraisal: Two employees confronting the identical objective event—such as a shop steward election or a change in formal work rules—may evaluate its significance in fundamentally divergent manners depending on their institutional roles, personal coping resources, and perceived organizational justice. The IRES explicitly separates event occurrence from individual psychological appraisal.
- Accounting for Constructive and Destructive Labor Realities: The scale avoids the pathologizing bias common in early industrial psychology, which treated union activity exclusively as a source of organizational friction. By allowing respondents to evaluate events across a positive-to-negative spectrum, the IRES captures constructive industrial relations—such as democratic representation and the successful rectification of grievances—as potent sources of psychological empowerment and positive organizational affect.
- Informing Organizational Dispute Resolution and Policy: Human resource executives, labor leaders, and organizational consultants utilize IRES data to identify which specific industrial relations procedures (e.g., disciplinary actions, communication breakdowns, lack of representation) generate the most severe psychological distress, thereby enabling data-driven interventions in conflict management and collective bargaining protocol design.
5. Psychological Construct
The psychological construct assessed by the Industrial Relations Event Scale is industrial relations stress, operationalized as an ongoing transactional dynamic between the employee and the institutional labor-management environment. Building upon foundational industrial sociology and psychological stress paradigms, the construct is conceptualized along three interdependent dimensions:
1. Event Occurrence (Exposure Frequency)
The exposure dimension reflects the objective or self-reported incidence of discrete industrial relations occurrences within a bounded temporal window (typically the preceding working day or shift). It captures the absolute density of structural, procedural, and interpersonal encounters occurring within the labor relations arena. Experiencing multiple events concurrently—such as facing an unexpected disciplinary review while simultaneously navigating a change in work rules—places substantial cumulative demands on an individual’s psychological and cognitive bandwidth, regardless of whether those demands are initially appraised as threatening or benign.
2. Negative Industrial Relations Stress (Appraised Threat and Loss)
Negative industrial relations stress represents the subjective appraisal of labor-management events as inherently threatening, harmful, or punitive. When employees experience events such as unfair labor practices, managerial intimidation, lack of trust, or victimization, these incidents violate foundational psychological contracts and expectations of organizational justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional). This appraisal dimension is characterized by feelings of vulnerability, institutional betrayal, procedural powerlessness, and anticipatory anxiety regarding employment security or physical and social well-being.
3. Positive Industrial Relations Perception (Appraised Challenge and Uplift)
In contrast to traditional strain measures, the IRES explicitly operationalizes positive industrial relations appraisals. Industrial democracy, collective bargaining, and union representation were historically established to mitigate arbitrary managerial control and safeguard worker dignity. Consequently, events such as participating in representative elections, successfully advocating for a peer, or witnessing the fair application of negotiated procedures can evoke profound feelings of self-efficacy, solidarity, institutional support, and procedural validation. The positive appraisal dimension captures this constructive psychological dynamic, functioning as an affective and motivational resource.
6. Theoretical Framework
The theoretical architecture of the Industrial Relations Event Scale synthesizes three prominent conceptual paradigms from cognitive psychology, organizational behavior, and labor relations theory:
The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping
The primary theoretical bedrock of the IRES is the transactional model formulated by Richard S. Lazarus and Susan Folkman (1984). Under this model, psychological stress is not an inherent property of an environmental stimulus nor an automatic physiological reaction, but rather a dynamic relationship between the person and the environment that is mediated by cognitive appraisal:
- Primary Appraisal: When an industrial event occurs (e.g., “Failure to use industrial relations procedures”), the individual evaluates its personal significance: Is it benign-positive, irrelevant, or stressful (harm/loss, threat, or challenge)? The IRES response scale directly reflects this primary appraisal process by requiring respondents to rate each experienced event on a continuum from extreme negative impact (-3) through neutral (0) to extreme positive impact (+3).
- Secondary Appraisal: This involves the evaluation of available coping resources, institutional protections, and personal agency to mitigate or capitalize on the event. Items reflecting “Not knowing who to turn to” or “Being powerless to act in the face of corruption” tap directly into secondary appraisal deficits.
Affective Events Theory (AET)
Although formalized by Howard M. Weiss and Russell Cropanzano in 1996 shortly after the publication of the IRES, the scale precisely operationalizes the core tenets of Affective Events Theory. AET posits that specific, episodic workplace events trigger immediate affective reactions (moods and discrete emotions), which subsequently direct both affect-driven behaviors (e.g., spontaneous conflict, citizenship behaviors) and sustained, cognitively driven attitudes (e.g., overall job satisfaction, institutional commitment). Kelloway, Barling, and Shah (1993) demonstrated that daily industrial relations events act as proximal triggers that govern daily affective states, which then serve as empirical mediators influencing overarching evaluations of work.
Dual-Exchange and Industrial Democracy Models
Industrial relations sociology (e.g., Dunlop, 1958; Fox, 1974) conceptualizes the unionized workplace as a contested terrain characterized by pluralistic interests, power imbalances, and formal rule-making. Bluen and Barling (1987, 1988) integrated these structural concepts into psychological science by articulating that industrial relations stressors operate differently from task-based stressors. Workers operate in a dual-exchange framework: they maintain a relationship with management and an independent relationship with their labor organization. The IRES reflects this dual reality by encompassing stressors arising from managerial overreach (e.g., intimidation, discrimination), union-related demands (e.g., representing others, union approaches), and systemic institutional friction (e.g., inter-group conflict, corruption).
7. Validity
The construct, criterion, and concurrent validity of the Industrial Relations Event Scale have been substantiated through empirical field investigations, most notably the longitudinal and structural equation modeling analyses conducted by Kelloway, Barling, and Shah (1993).
Construct and Structural Validity
Construct validity was evaluated by assessing whether the subjective cognitive appraisals of industrial relations events behaved as distinct psychological phenomena rather than mere artifacts of generalized negative affectivity or dispositional neuroticism. In structural path analyses, Kelloway et al. (1993) demonstrated that positive and negative appraisals of industrial relations events load onto distinct functional paths. Rather than acting as inverse ends of a strictly unidimensional construct, positive industrial relations perceptions and negative industrial relations stress exhibit asymmetric relationships with psychological outcomes, validating the bivariate affective conceptualization.
Criterion-Related and Concurrent Validity
In their validation study involving unionized employees surveyed across distinct working shifts, Kelloway, Barling, and Shah (1993) tested an explicit structural model examining the concurrent effects of daily industrial relations events on positive mood, negative mood, and overall job satisfaction:
- Negative Industrial Relations Stress: Demonstrated statistically significant negative paths to positive mood (β = -.26, p < .01) and job satisfaction (β = -.31, p < .001), alongside a robust positive path to negative mood (β = .38, p < .001). Employees reporting acute negative events exhibited elevated somatic complaints, tension, and alienation.
- Positive Industrial Relations Stress: Correlated positively and significantly with positive mood states (β = .29, p < .01) and concurrent job satisfaction (β = .24, p < .05), while demonstrating negligible or non-significant associations with negative mood. This confirmed that constructive industrial relations events operate as genuine psychological uplifts rather than simply the absence of stress.
Mediational Evidence
A critical test of the scale’s validity involved examining whether affective states mediated the relationship between industrial relations stress and broader job attitudes. Formal tests of indirect effects confirmed that daily positive and negative moods partially or fully mediated the influence of acute industrial relations events on global job satisfaction, providing rigorous empirical support for the theoretical pathways predicted by transactional stress paradigms and Affective Events Theory.
8. Reliability
The psychometric evaluation of reliability for life-event inventories such as the IRES requires a fundamental departure from classical test theory conventions. In traditional psychometrics, multi-item scales measure reflective latent constructs (e.g., self-esteem, generalized anxiety), where all items are assumed to be intercorrelated reflections of a single underlying trait, making Cronbach’s alpha or composite reliability the definitive standard.
In contrast, the IRES utilizes a formative (causal indicator) measurement model (Bollen & Lennox, 1991; Streiner, 2003):
- Inappropriateness of Internal Consistency Metrics: The occurrence of one specific industrial event (e.g., “Shop steward or worker representative elections”) does not theoretically require or imply the co-occurrence of another (e.g., “Being called abusive names” or “Problems with accommodation, transportation, schools”). Because different respondents experience entirely idiosyncratic constellations of events on any given day, computing internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach’s α) across the entire checklist yields artificially deflated, psychometrically meaningless statistics. As Kelloway et al. (1993, p. 449) explicitly noted, calculating customary internal consistency is inappropriate for checklist methodology where items are not expected to correlate.
- Test-Retest Stability in Daily Designs: Because the IRES is deliberately designed to capture episodic, daily environmental fluctuations, standard high test-retest reliability across extended multi-week intervals is neither expected nor desirable. High test-retest stability would indicate that the instrument measures a static personality trait rather than dynamic, daily situational events. However, across stable, non-dispute baseline control periods, aggregated event reporting exhibits substantial intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs > .70), demonstrating measurement fidelity across equivalent working environments.
- Inter-Rater and Content Reliability: The 25 items were selected through rigorous content-validation procedures derived from Bluen and Barling’s (1987) comprehensive item-pool derivation, which utilized independent subject-matter expert panels (union stewards, labor arbiters, industrial psychologists) to verify that the items comprehensively cover the domain of workplace industrial conflict.
9. Factor Analysis
The structural underpinnings of the IRES trace back to the exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic investigations conducted by Bluen and Barling (1987) during the construction of the original 78-item Industrial Relations Life Event Scale (IRLES), combined with subsequent structural equation modeling evaluations by Kelloway et al. (1993).
Derivation from the 78-Item IRLES
In the original psychometric development of the broader instrument, Bluen and Barling (1987) administered an extensive pool of potential industrial relations stressors to diverse industrial cohorts. Factor analyses with varimax and oblimin rotations revealed distinct substantive clusters capturing:
- Disciplinary and Conflictual Procedures: Incidents involving formal sanctions, grievances, and disputes with supervisors.
- Union Activity and Representation: Elections, meetings, negotiating roles, and representing peers.
- Structural and Environmental Changes: Alterations in work rules, working conditions, and broader socio-economic disruptions (e.g., transport, housing).
- Interpersonal Hostility and Discrimination: Intimidation, victimization, racial/gender advancement barriers, and abusive language.
Item Reduction to the 25-Item IRES
To create a practical, low-burden instrument suitable for repeated-measures and daily diary protocols, Kelloway, Barling, and Shah (1993) distilled the original 78-item corpus down to 25 core items. Selection criteria prioritized items with high historical factor loadings (> .45), wide applicability across diverse occupational sectors, and demonstrated sensitivity to daily organizational shifts. In their structural modeling, the researchers modeled the substantive appraisal outputs (Negative IR Stress and Positive IR Stress) as latent or composite exogenous variables. Goodness-of-fit indices supported models that separated negative appraisals from positive appraisals (χ²/df < 2.0, Goodness of Fit Index [GFI] > .92, Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index [AGFI] > .88, Root Mean Square Residual [RMSR] < .05), confirming that bi-directional affective evaluations operate through divergent psychological channels.
10. Instrument / Measurement Tool
The Industrial Relations Event Scale is a standardized, self-administered checklist inventory. Below are the operational specifications of the instrument:
- Instrument Type: Formative event checklist with dual-valence cognitive appraisal rating.
- Target Population: Employed adult personnel in unionized, corporatized, or contested industrial, manufacturing, public sector, and service environments.
- Item Count: 25 discrete event statements.
- Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 6 minutes (depending on the number of events experienced on the reference day).
- Temporal Frame: Typically administered with respect to “today” (the shift just completed) or a specified recall window (e.g., the past week/month).
- Response Format: Two-stage assessment per item:
- Stage 1 (Occurrence): The respondent identifies whether the event occurred within the designated reference period. If the event did not occur, it is left unrated or marked as non-applicable.
- Stage 2 (Appraisal): If the event occurred, the respondent rates the direction and magnitude of its impact on a 7-point bipolar Likert-type scale:
- -3: Extremely negative impact
- -2: Moderately negative impact
- -1: Slightly negative impact
- 0: Occurred, but had no impact
- +1: Slightly positive impact
- +2: Moderately positive impact
- +3: Extremely positive impact
- Scoring Protocols: Researchers can compute three distinct summary metrics:
- Event Occurrence Frequency (EOF): The total count of events experienced (ranging from 0 to 25).
- Negative Industrial Relations Stress (NIRS): The sum (or absolute average) of all negative impact ratings (scores of -1, -2, and -3). Often converted to positive values for regression modeling.
- Positive Industrial Relations Stress / Uplift (PIRS): The sum (or average) of all positive impact ratings (scores of +1, +2, and +3).
11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year
The Industrial Relations Event Scale was published in 1993 in the Journal of Organizational Behavior (Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 447–457). The copyright for the peer-reviewed article and its appendix belongs to the authors and John Wiley & Sons Limited.
Licensing and Academic Use:
- Scholarly and Educational Research: The scale items were published in full in the appendix of Kelloway, Barling, and Shah (1993). In accordance with standard academic fair dealing and fair use principles, the instrument may be utilized for non-commercial scholarly research, university theses, and academic investigations without royalty fees, provided appropriate scholarly attribution and formal citation are given.
- Commercial and Organizational Consulting: Utilization of the IRES for commercial management consulting, proprietary organizational audits, or profit-generating employee assessment programs requires formal copyright clearance and reproduction permission from John Wiley & Sons Limited via the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) or the publisher’s rights portal.
12. References
Below are primary foundational references for the scale and its theoretical framework:
- Bluen, S. D., & Barling, J. (1987). Stress and the industrial relations process: Development of the Industrial Relations Event Scale. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 60(3), 185–199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8325.1987.tb00253.x
- Bluen, S. D., & Barling, J. (1988). Psychological aspects of strikes. In C. L. Cooper & I. T. Robertson (Eds.), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 169–205). John Wiley & Sons.
- Bollen, K., & Lennox, R. (1991). Conventional wisdom on measurement: A structural equation perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 110(2), 305–314. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.110.2.305
- Dunlop, J. T. (1958). Industrial relations systems. Henry Holt & Company.
- Fox, A. (1974). Beyond contract: Work, power and trust relations. Faber & Faber.
- Kelloway, E. K., Barling, J., & Shah, A. (1993). Industrial relations stress and job satisfaction: Concurrent effects and mediation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14(5), 447–457. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030140507
- Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company.
- Streiner, D. L. (2003). Being inconsistent about consistency: When coefficient alpha does and doesn’t matter. Journal of Personality Assessment, 80(3), 217–222. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327752JPA8003_01
- Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior (Vol. 18, pp. 1–74). JAI Press.