Abstract
We offer a defence of, and framework for, comparative research in industrial and employment relations, based on a long-term engagement with the social contexts under study. We locate ‘slow’ research strategies in relation to predominant approaches and establish a number of basic precepts of slow comparativism as a practical methodological approach. We aim to provoke a discussion among those conducting comparative research on work and employment about how truth claims are generated. We also seek a basis by which those conducting slower forms of comparativism, through what we term ‘implicit ethnographies’, can find better ways of developing and defending their modes of research within an often hostile academic political economy.
Highlights
This paper addresses cross-national comparative research in industrial and employment relations
While there has been an increase in the volume of research which covers multiple national contexts, much of this research is based on rather thin forms of comparativism: in other words, it is characterised by limited sociological engagement with the dynamics of the societies under study
This has resulted in, at best, a limited ability to identify causal factors which are outside the scope of research frameworks determined ex ante, and, at worst, flat-out misunderstandings of the local and national dynamics of social action arising from a lack of comprehension of the choices available to actors in particular social settings
Summary
This paper addresses cross-national comparative research in industrial and employment relations. Its aim is to articulate a case, and provide a framework for, research which makes a longterm, in-depth engagement with the social contexts under study, in order to gain deeper and more reliable insights into the nature of, and reasons for, cross-national differences and similarities We call this form of research engagement ‘slow’ comparativism. In particular fast methods of operationalisation, are favoured by the political economy of research They can respond, on their own terms successfully, to the frequent need for research to cover large numbers of countries due to institutional funder requirements, and to the incentives to make positivistic claims about the relations between standardised variables across as large an n as possible. As Hyman (2001) has argued in the context of cross-national comparison of trade unions, it is a very iterative process which tends to take a long time ( ‘slow’ comparativism)
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