Mapping employee involvement and participation in institutional context: Mick Marchington's applied pluralist contributions to human resource management research methods, theory and policy

Abstract

Our paper examines how the work of Mick Marchington integrated older forms of employee participation with newer patterns of employee involvement. The paper shows how Employee Involvement and Participation (EIP) is central to contemporary Human Resource Management (HRM) in four distinct ways: first is the ‘theoretical’ integration of pluralism into newer HRM approaches; second is the ‘practical’ insights gained from what was happening at organisational level; third is the contributions to ongoing ‘policy debates’ about fair work; and finally, his emphasis on ‘context-sensitive methods’ link macro, meso and micro developments. We refer to three specific projects and related periods: a Department of Employment funded project during the late 1980s and early 1990s which developed the waves and escalator concepts of EIP; a Chartered Institute of Personnel Development project concerned with employee voice and management choice in the 2000s, which gave insight to multiple meanings of EIP and strategic choice; and research concerned with the notion of fair voice from comparative cases studies across different liberal market economies from 2008 onwards. By reflecting on these research projects and periods we present a potential framework that offers continued longevity for the future study of HRM.