IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/indbez/314324.html

Patterns in the Press Releases of Trade Unions: How to Use Structural Topic Models in the Field of Industrial Relations
[Muster in Pressemitteilungen von Gewerkschaften. Die Anwendung von Structural Topic Models im Feld der industriellen Beziehungen]

Author

Listed:
  • Bender, Benedikt
  • Bruinsma, Bastiaan

Abstract

Quantitative text analysis and the use of large data sets have received only limited attention in the field of Industrial Relations. This is unfortunate, given the variety of opportunities and possibilities these methods can address. We demonstrate the use of one promising technique of quantitative text analysis - the Structural Topic Model (STM) - to test the Insider-Outsider theory. This technique allowed us to find underlying topics in a text corpus of nearly 2,000 German trade union press releases (from 2000 to 2014). We provide a step-by-step overview of how to use STM since we see this method as useful to the future of research in the field of Industrial Relations. Until now the methodological publications regarding STM mostly focus on the mathematics of the method and provide only aminimal discussion of their implementation. Instead, we provide a practical application of STM and apply this method to one of the most prominent theories in the field of Industrial Relations. Contrary to the original Insider-Outsider arguments, but in line with the current state of research, we show that unions do in fact use topics within their press releases which are relevant for both Insider and Outsider groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Bender, Benedikt & Bruinsma, Bastiaan, 2022. "Patterns in the Press Releases of Trade Unions: How to Use Structural Topic Models in the Field of Industrial Relations [Muster in Pressemitteilungen von Gewerkschaften. Die Anwendung von Structural Topic Models im Feld der industriellen Beziehung," Industrielle Beziehungen. Zeitschrift für Arbeit, Organisation und Management, Verlag Barbara Budrich, vol. 29(2), pages 91-116.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:indbez:314324
    DOI: 10.3224/indbez.v29i2.02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/314324/1/41714-43940-1-PB.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3224/indbez.v29i2.02?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rueda, David, 2007. "Social Democracy Inside Out: Partisanship and Labor Market Policy in Advanced Industrialized Democracies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199234059.
    2. Denny, Matthew J. & Spirling, Arthur, 2018. "Text Preprocessing For Unsupervised Learning: Why It Matters, When It Misleads, And What To Do About It," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 168-189, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ronconi, Lucas & Kanbur, Ravi & López-Cariboni, Santiago, 2019. "Who Demands Labour (De)Regulation in the Developing World? Insider–Outsider Theory Revisited," IZA Discussion Papers 12831, IZA Network @ LISER.
    2. Stefan Thewissen & Olaf Vliet & Chen Wang, 2018. "Taking the Sector Seriously: Data, Developments, and Drivers of Intrasectoral Earnings Inequality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 1023-1048, August.
    3. Mohamed M. Mostafa, 2023. "A one-hundred-year structural topic modeling analysis of the knowledge structure of international management research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 3905-3935, August.
    4. Latifi, Albina & Naboka-Krell, Viktoriia & Tillmann, Peter & Winker, Peter, 2024. "Fiscal policy in the Bundestag: Textual analysis and macroeconomic effects," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    5. Karina Shyrokykh & Max Girnyk & Lisa Dellmuth, 2023. "Short text classification with machine learning in the social sciences: The case of climate change on Twitter," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(9), pages 1-26, September.
    6. Avram, Silvia, 2020. "Zero-hours contracts: flexibility or insecurity? Experimental evidence from a low income population," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Purwoko Haryadi Santoso & Edi Istiyono & Haryanto & Wahyu Hidayatulloh, 2022. "Thematic Analysis of Indonesian Physics Education Research Literature Using Machine Learning," Data, MDPI, vol. 7(11), pages 1-41, October.
    8. Van Vliet, Olaf & Nijboer, Henk, 2012. "Flexicurity in the European Union: flexibility for outsiders, security for insiders," MPRA Paper 37012, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Duane Swank, 2015. "The Political Foundations of Redistribution in Post-industrial Democracies," LIS Working papers 653, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. Knotz, Carlo Michael, 2012. "Measuring the 'new balance of rights and responsibilities' in labor market policy: A quantitative overview of activation strategies in 20 OECD countries," Working papers of the ZeS 06/2012, University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS).
    11. Camilla Salvatore & Silvia Biffignandi & Annamaria Bianchi, 2022. "Corporate Social Responsibility Activities Through Twitter: From Topic Model Analysis to Indexes Measuring Communication Characteristics," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 1217-1248, December.
    12. Martin B. Carstensen & Christian Lyhne Ibsen & Vivien A. Schmidt, 2022. "Ideas and power in employment relations studies," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 3-21, January.
    13. Jason Anastasopoulos & George J. Borjas & Gavin G. Cook & Michael Lachanski, 2018. "Job Vacancies, the Beveridge Curve, and Supply Shocks: The Frequency and Content of Help-Wanted Ads in Pre- and Post-Mariel Miami," NBER Working Papers 24580, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Sandra Wankmüller, 2024. "Introduction to Neural Transfer Learning With Transformers for Social Science Text Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 53(4), pages 1676-1752, November.
    15. repec:osf:socarx:yfzsh_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Baptiste Françon, 2013. "Who turned their back on the SPD? Electoral disaffection with the German Social Democratic Party and the Hartz reforms," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 14019, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    17. Schwander, Hanna, 2015. "Labor market risks in times of welfare state transformation," TranState Working Papers 192, University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State.
    18. Marc-Alexander Lutz & Bastian Schäfermeier & Rachael Sexton & Michael Sharp & Alden Dima & Stefan Faulstich & Jagan Mohini Aluri, 2023. "KPI Extraction from Maintenance Work Orders—A Comparison of Expert Labeling, Text Classification and AI-Assisted Tagging for Computing Failure Rates of Wind Turbines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-14, December.
    19. Cruz-Martinez, Gibran, 2019. "Comparative social policy in contemporary Latin America: Concepts, theories and a research agenda," SocArXiv ygh8d, Center for Open Science.
    20. W. Benedikt Schmal, 2024. "Academic Knowledge: Does it Reflect the Combinatorial Growth of Technology?," Papers 2409.20282, arXiv.org.
    21. repec:osf:socarx:d3ybr_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Roberta MONTEBELLO & Jonathan SPITERI & Philip VON BROCKDORFF, 2023. "Trade unions and income inequality: Evidence from a panel of European countries," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 162(3), pages 481-503, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:indbez:314324. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.budrich-journals.de/index.php/indbez/index .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.