Centre for Employment Studies Research - CESR

Theory and Critical Realism

Within academic employment relations are strands of theory and research concerned with quantification, measurement and metrics. Alternative perspectives, such as critical realism, argue that reality cannot be ignored for the sake of mathematical convenience and that qualitative, interpretive and subjective phenomena do not fit easily into statistical models. Rather, people, their intentions and the social structures and institutions with which they engage need to be understood and explained. Critical realism can assist employment relations researchers build fruitful theories and thereby improve the basis on which practical intervention in the workplace might be conducted.