This special issue invites critical contributions exploring how inclusive research practices—developed through participatory, reflexive, and decolonial methodologies—advance social justice and inclusion in contemporary employment relations. We encourage interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches that centre marginalised employee and community voices in co-creational frameworks; inherently feminist in nature (Drydakis et al., 2022).
Inclusive research challenges the traditional researcher–participant hierarchy and calls for co-production of knowledge with those historically excluded from organisational decision-making and employment policy formation (Tahssain-Gay et al., 2025). Within the neoliberal university and corporate world, such approaches have often remained marginal or tokenistic, particularly within HRM and management disciplines (Parker, 2018). Inclusive methodologies demand more than ethical compliance; they reposition research as a process of mutual learning, empowerment, and voice—principles central to the study of employee relations.
We see the transformative potential of autoethnographic and participatory approaches in amplifying the lived experiences of marginalised workers—such as disabled employees navigating reasonable adjustments (Doan & Darcy, 2025), mothers returning from parental leave negotiating justice and flexibility (Hussein, 2022), or migrant workers facing precarity in service industries (Lugosi & Thomas, 2024). These approaches challenge conventional notions of objectivity and neutrality, and instead value reflexivity, embodiment, and co-agency as valid epistemological foundations for understanding work and employment.
Similarly, participatory storytelling and co-creative research methods have been used to include underrepresented voices in shaping workplace policies and organisational culture: for example, engaging neurodiverse employees in redesigning job roles (Silva Dos Santos, Lugosi, & Hawkins, 2024); working with union representatives and precarious workers to identify inclusive pathways to representation (Sisto et al., 2022); and collaborating with care or hospitality workers to uncover invisible emotional and reproductive labour (Doan et al., 2021).
Context and Urgency
We write this call at a time of deepening social division and inequality in the UK and beyond—where far-right narratives, race hate crimes, and migration restrictions intersect with workplace exclusion and economic marginalisation. The field of employee relations must respond to these dynamics, addressing how power and inequality operate in employment systems and research practices alike.
Marginalised populations—including disabled, neurodiverse, racialised, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and migrant workers—remain excluded not only from equitable employment but also from shaping the research and policies that govern their work lives (Soulard, Lundin, & Zou, 2024). Inclusive research approaches that foreground participation, empathy, and social identity (Woosnam & Ribeiro, 2023) can offer transformative models for ethical inquiry, organisational dialogue, and collective action.
Aims and Contribution
This special issue will spotlight inclusive research—theoretically, empirically, and methodologically—as central to the future of employment relations and workplace justice. We aim to reposition inclusivity not as an add-on but as a core orientation for ethical scholarship, organisational learning, and social transformation.
We invite contributions that examine:
- How inclusive and participatory research practices enhance employee voice and engagement;
- How co-created knowledge can disrupt hierarchical, technocratic models of HR and management research;
- And how such approaches foster dignity, trust, and accountability between researchers, workers, and organisations.
List of Topic Areas
- Inclusive and participatory research methodologies in employment relations.
- Decolonial, feminist, and reflexive epistemologies in HRM and workplace studies.
- Employee voice, dignity, and co-production in marginalised labour contexts.
- Participatory policymaking and ethical research governance in organisations.
- Global and intersectional perspectives on inclusivity, precarity, and social justice.
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Key Deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/12/2025
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 30/06/2026
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