Authors: Heather Connolly (Grenoble Ecole de Management); Stefania Marino (Work and Equalities Institute, University of Manchester); Miguel Martinez Lucio (Work and Equalities Institute, University of Manchester), Caitlin Schmid (Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, King’s College London); Holly Smith (Work and Equalities Institute, University of Manchester).

Abstract:

Research on equality at work exists within and across multiple disciplines and continues to be strongly embedded in nationally specific research cultures and traditions (Frege, 2005). This article will construct an overview and intellectual map of the dynamic and changing nature of the debate on equality at work by providing a bibliometric analysis (Casey and McMillan, 2008) of the scholarly debate on this topic.

This process was devised as a methodological exercise to assist with a larger research project aimed at contrasting the experiences and issues related to equality at work in terms of policy and regulation within the UK to other cases within Europe – France, the Netherlands, and Spain – which have made an explicit and concerted effort to engage with a more progressive and inclusive approach to equality. The project focuses on the rhetoric and policy development of equality and regulation at work and within organisations, and aims to outline key paradigm shifts leading to an engagement with equality and ways in which these are understood and responded to within the sphere of work and employment, and specifically within a context of political uncertainty, especially with major challenges emerging to the contours and nature of equality strategies including Brexit, the rise in populist discourse, and external shock factors such as the Coronavirus crisis.

The paper will review the recurrence and usage of key terms related to equality within international and national academic journals, with the aim of determining and analysing the changing and contested nature of the debate and what ideas, intellectual bases, and trends predominate across country and time during the period under observation (1970s – present). Additionally, while attempts have been made to define and classify diversity, equality, and inclusion as etymologically different anti-discriminatory approaches (Oswick and Noon, 2014), this paper seeks to provide conceptual clarity within and across nationally embedded linguistic and sociocultural understandings of key terms and practices.

The provision of an intellectual map of the discourse related to equality at work will permit observations of convergences and divergences across nations, time, and disciplinary affiliations. The paper will present preliminary findings and reflections on the evolution of theories and paradigms, and support further analysis to identify if or how external forces and specific sociohistorical events have shaped the trajectory of the debate.

References

Casey, D. and McMillan, G., 2008. Identifying the “Invisible Colleges" of the British Journal of Industrial Relations: A Bibliometric and Social Network Approach. Industrial and Labor Relationship Review, 62(1), pp.126-132.

Frege, C.M., 2005. Varieties of Industrial Relations Research: Take‐over, Convergence or Divergence?. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 43(2), pp.179-207.