Comparative employment relations is a well-established field within industrial relations. At the macro level it has been important in identifying the role of institutions, culture and economic conditions in understanding differences and similarities in employment relations across countries. In particular, the works coming out of the varieties of capitalism literature (Hall and Soskice 2001) have highlighted the importance of historical legacies and path dependencies which substantially constrain (as well as explain) the structures and orientations of labour market actors and institutions. At the micro level, it has traditionally been dominated by case-study qualitative research which has sought to unpick differences in practices and perceptions of actors faced with seemingly similar working environments but in different national and local settings. Studies such as Nichols and Cam’s (2005) investigation of the labour process in the white goods industry in seven different countries and four different continents have been seminal in shedding light on the extent of the heterogeneity within seemingly similar settings. Comparative studies offer opportunities to identify the role played by national and local factors in shaping practices and outcomes, such as attitudes to management, the climate of employment relations and workplace financial performance. The availability of comparative data also allows the analyst to test hypotheses about the nature of differences. Our special issue seeks to reflect some of this work, together with studies that build on two recent developments in the field. The first of these fairly recent developments is the use of large-scale surveys which, because they share a number of features — such as the unit of analysis, sampling and survey content — permit analysts to undertake comparative work based on large-scale quantitative data. Perhaps the most significant of these are the surveys of workplaces undertaken in Australia (Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey), Britain (the Workplace Employment Relations Survey [WERS]), France (Relations Professionnelles et Negociations d’Entreprises), Canada (Workplace and Employee Survey), Norway (the Norwegian Workplace Employment Relations Survey) and