The Evolution Of The Study Of Industrial Relations In China And Its Institutional Embeddedness

When we talk about labour economics,what are we talking about in China? At the beginning of 1980 s,the Labour Economics textbook stated “labour economics is a discipline about industrial relations”.However,there is no textbooks explaining labour economics in this way and Labour Economics and Labour Relations,to some extent,are two independent disciplines nowadays.From the core question of Labour Economics to a relatively independent field,this means substantial change has been experienced by the field of industrial relations since the economic reform in China.How has the study field of industrial relations evolved in China since 1978? What could be the possible factors influencing the evolution? Has the study mode of industrial relations in China converged with other western developed countries in that the employment practices and industrial relations structures are changing to resemble the forms in those countries?By reviewing the theories of scientific production,research and state tradition,and the literature of industrial relations studies,this study constructed an institutional embeddedness framework which includes political-economic environment,labour practice and policies,and academic tradition to conduct a possible explanative analysis of the evolution of the study field of industrial relations in China and its possible difference from other countries.Hundreds of journal articles published during 1978-2015 from CNKI database have been selected to do quantitative and qualitative analysis from several perspectives----main labour discipline,contributory discipline,main subject,methodological approach and technique,main contribution and internationalization.The results suggested that there were stable parts in the study of industrial relations in China though change has happened during this period.Comparing with US and Germany,we found that even though the employment practices had converged and international academic communication has increased,the research mode still partly sticks to its state tradition.The study argued that the changing political-economic environment and labour practices had contributed to the evolution of the study mode of industrial relations in China while the academic tradition,including the “rationalism” and “pragmatism” epistemology,the historical development of the industrial relations institutes and the traditional value of “respecting labour”,had made the study model relatively stable which indicates the embeddedness in state tradition.The evolution,the relative stability and the divergence of the study model of industrial relations in China have shown that the study of industrial relations,even the social science research was institutionally embedded.The dynamics have proved the impacts of the political-economic factors and the labour practices and policies while the academic tradition was stressed by the relatively inner stability and the divergence between countries,which means the context matters in social science and historical and social context analysis is necessary in social science.