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

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 pres?ent a potential framework that offers continued longevity  for the future study of HRM.