The challenging but promising future of industrial relations: developing theory and method in context-sensitive research

Industrial relations (IR) in the UK are often seen as being in a state of some disarray. Yet analytical advances can also be detected. This article takes one part of IR, context-sensitive research, to suggest ways of building on such advances. Its focus is the intellectual core of the subject, and not its institutional position. The particular route identified is to link IR to the programme of critical realism and thereby to make methodological progress and strengthen links with social science. Policy relevance may also be enhanced. Whether IR's possibilities are realised remains uncertain, and whether an intellectual programme leads to institutional advance is even harder to predict.