Research note: Mind the gaps – The problems and politics of bibliographic analysis for comparative industrial relations research on workplace equalities

This article offers a critical reflection of the challenges of conducting bibliometric analysis in cross-national comparative industrial relations research on workplace equalities. Drawing on a scoping exercise designed to map equality research in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, we demonstrate how bibliometric methods struggle to capture situated knowledge and translate contested concepts across national contexts. While bibliometric approaches can offer useful insights when carefully deployed, uncritical applications risk producing ‘thin’ and decontextualised findings. We engage with debates on English Language Predominance, conceptual equivalence, and epistemological diversity, and argue for more reflexive, pluralistic, and ‘slow’ comparative research, sensitive to the socially constructed and locally situated language on equality at work.