Trade unions and action research

Abstract

There is little or no tradition of action research outputs reaching the mainstream industrial relations and work sociology literatures. The aim of this research note is to address why this is so and argue for an action research agenda for work with unions that entails the researcher assuming the role of change agent to facilitate union capacity building or developing workplaces for better jobs. A key issue is how such an agenda can be advanced that does not compromise the integrity of the researcher or the quality of research output. This, we argue, is worth exploring as a means for putting union research onto a more interventionist footing. However, we also suggest that the successful pursuit of such an agenda depends on meeting a number of methodological challenges.