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This paper contributes to the broad aim of this special issue, reflecting on the relevance of the writing of Alan Fox to the contemporary industrial relations field. It offers an original reflection from a feminist perspective on Fox’s classic insights around frames of reference.

We concentrate on Beyond Contract, Work, Power and Trust Relations (1974a) and Man Mismanagement (1974b, 1985) as the texts setting out Fox’s influential frames of reference theory, before moving on to subsequent literature in the field making use of Fox’s frames. In undertaking this review from a feminist perspective, we specifically look at the extent to which work considers standpoint, gender relations and political engagement. We draw further on wider feminist scholarship within industrial relations, critical race theory and intersectionality perspectives.

Despite the concept of inequality forming the core of Fox’s analyses, there is a lack of attention to gender or to other diversity strands in his work and, notwithstanding the weight of feminist scholarship within the industrial relations field since, this neglect has been carried forward into subsequent use of Fox’s work. We argue there is space for the frames to be interpreted and used in ways that leave space for attention to feminist concerns and call on academics to approach their use of Fox from a more critically-informed perspective.

The paper’s argument has implications for the field of industrial relations in terms of conceptual understanding and methodological approaches. With space, it would have been useful to apply our revised understanding of Fox’s key concepts to empirical cases.

Greater clarity in what constitutes “unitary” and “pluralist” perspectives and categories will help employment relations actors.

We present a novel feminist re-framing of Fox’s work, providing new understandings of the strengths, weaknesses and applicability of the frames of reference within contemporary industrial relations research and practice. We advocate for methodological and scholarly approaches which advance theoretical and empirical justice in the field, moving beyond gender to draw on critical race theory and intersectionality frameworks.

The purpose of this paper is to address the little researched question of how trade unions have interpreted and engaged with the discourse of diversity adopted by many organisations to replace the traditional “equal opportunities” discourse.

Drawing on interviews with national trade union equality officers, the paper presents a discourse‐based analysis, exploring what the shift towards a diversity discourse means for trade unions.

The paper identifies three main features of the diversity discourse, which cause concern from the trade union perspective: its business‐driven nature, its focus on the individual and its positioning as a top‐down managerial activity. The main concern expressed was that the upbeat rhetoric of the diversity discourse diverts attention from the realities of discrimination and disadvantage. However, the discussion concludes that unions believe it is possible to work critically with diversity in order to pursue equality objectives.

The paper offers an original perspective on the diversity discourse, and within the field of employment relations, an unusual analytical approach.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what happens to organisational diversity management (DM) policies when the management focus has turned towards significantly reducing workforce numbers.

Findings from a qualitative case study research in one government department (PSO) is presented, and Dickens' three strategies for equality action as an analytical framework is used.

PSO provides an example of the ways in which the three equality strategies outlined by Dickens interact with and mediate each other, so that together they potentially provide a much stronger foundation for the DM agenda within the context of a downsizing process.

The qualitative nature of the data makes generalisability to other organisations limited. In addition, case study fieldwork was not conducted during and after the downsizing exercise, however access to documentary data was available.

The importance of involvement of a variety of organisational stakeholders in DM policy is shown, as is the importance for DM sustainability of combining the business case with the legal case within a joint regulation framework.

This research offers an analysis of DM within a public sector organisation during the pre‐downsizing phase of a restructuring exercise, and the ability to explore perceptions of a variety of organisational stakeholders, particularly line‐managers, non‐management employees and union representatives.

This article is concerned with strategies for managing the careers of women who work in paid positions in the union movement. Recently there has been some debate about the positive potential offered by the use of ICTs in a variety of areas of trade union activity. We link this to debates about the role of trade union education in developing women’s careers within trade unions by exploring the experiences of participants on a recent British Trades Union Congress (TUC) online course for women. The study suggests that the potentialities of ICTs in this sphere of trade union activity are mediated by a number of gendered constraints.

This paper focuses on the relationship between a particular social practice – local exchange trading systems or schemes (LETS) – and what we here call the “mainstream” marketing paradigm. It begins by discussing some of the key principles that are thought to set LETS apart from other, “more mainstream”, economic activities. One case is then given particular attention – the “Ithaca hours” system – run in Ithaca, New York. Having examined the formalities of the system and its operation, the paper reviews what participants say about their participation. The paper draws upon these multiple narratives to explore the ways LETS may be both similar to and different from other forms of economic and social praxis. The authors’ argument is that “mainstream” marketing concepts and practices fail to embrace all the complexities of LETS as social‐economic practices.