IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/worbus/v41y2006i1p66-80.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The emerging approach to employee relations in German overseas affiliates: A role model for international operation?

Author

Listed:
  • Tüselmann, Heinz-Josef
  • McDonald, Frank
  • Thorpe, Richard

Abstract

In light of current changes in the German industrial relations' landscape and the wider and deeper integration of German multinationals into the world economy, this study investigates the relative importance of the country-of-origin effect in employee relations of German affiliates in an Anglo-American setting. The paper addresses important issues that relate to the wider international business domain. The comparative analysis to US affiliates in the UK and British owned firms points to a distinctively German flavored hybrid approach that integrates the best practice elements of the US model with the collective orientation of the German model. This bears a resemblance to an emerging trend in the parent companies' home locations. The intra-German analysis revealed that affiliates of multinationals that face pressures for international integration are at the forefront of this development. The findings suggest that this might provide a suitable model of international operation for multinationals from strongly institutionalized countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Tüselmann, Heinz-Josef & McDonald, Frank & Thorpe, Richard, 2006. "The emerging approach to employee relations in German overseas affiliates: A role model for international operation?," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 66-80, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:worbus:v:41:y:2006:i:1:p:66-80
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951605000726
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nachum, Lilach, 2003. "Does nationality of ownership make any difference and, if so, under what circumstances?: Professional service MNEs in global competition," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32.
    2. Gómez, Carolina, 2004. "The influence of environmental, organizational, and HRM factors on employee behaviors in subsidiaries: a Mexican case study of organizational learning," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-11, February.
    3. Keith Sisson, 1993. "In Search of HRM," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 201-210, June.
    4. Peter J Buckley & Martin J Carter, 2004. "A formal analysis of knowledge combination in multinational enterprises," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 35(5), pages 371-384, September.
    5. David Guest & Neil Conway, 1999. "Peering into the Black Hole: The Downside of the New Employment Relations in the UK," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 367-389, September.
    6. Barrell, Ray & Pain, Nigel, 1999. "Domestic institutions, agglomerations and foreign direct investment in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 925-934, April.
    7. Mike Geppert & Karen Williams & Dirk Matten, 2003. "The Social Construction of Contextual Rationalities in MNCs: An Anglo‐German Comparison of Subsidiary Choice," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 617-641, May.
    8. Mudambi, Ram & Navarra, Pietro, 2002. "Institutions and internation business: a theoretical overview," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 635-646, December.
    9. Ferner, Anthony & Quintanilla, Javier & Varul, Matthias Z., 2001. "Country-of-origin effects, host-country effects, and the management of HR in multinationals: German companies in Britain and Spain," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 107-127, July.
    10. Whittington, Richard & Mayer, Michael, 2000. "The European Corporation: Strategy, Structure, and Social Science," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199242085.
    11. Pauly, Louis W. & Reich, Simon, 1997. "National structures and multinational corporate behavior: enduring differences in the age of globalization," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(1), pages 1-30, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kuznetsov, Andrei & Jacob, Marcus, 2015. "Institutional adjustment and change at the firm level: A varieties of capitalism perspective," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 165-177.
    2. Schröter, Oliver & Davoine, Eric, 2013. "Unterschiede in der institutionellen Einbettung der Arbeitsbeziehungen und Human Resource Management Praktiken zwischen Deutschland und der Schweiz: eine explorative Untersuchung in Schweizer Tochterg," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 67(4), pages 364-390.
    3. Stevis, Dimitris., 2010. "International framework agreements and global social dialogue : parameters and prospects," ILO Working Papers 994539893402676, International Labour Organization.
    4. Maeve O'Sullivan & Christine Cross & Jonathan Lavelle, 2021. "Good or bad jobs? Characteristics of older female part‐time work," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(5), pages 423-441, September.
    5. Dörrenbächer, Christoph & Müller, Hans-Erich & Tüselmann, Heinz-Josef, 2021. "Transatlantische Mergers of Equals: Perspektiven europäisch-amerikanischer Unternehmensfusionen," Study / edition der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf, volume 127, number 465, March.
    6. Cuervo-Cazurra, Alvaro & Li, Cheng, 2021. "State ownership and internationalization: The advantage and disadvantage of stateness," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(1).
    7. Cerar, Jelena & Dimitrova, Mihaela & Nell, Phillip C., 2022. "Fostering operational management “Best Practices” in subsidiary plants in the Western Balkans: The role of MNC home-country environment and resource allocation," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(2).
    8. Gammelgaard, Jens & McDonald, Frank & Stephan, Andreas & Tüselmann, Heinz & Dörrenbächer, Christoph, 2012. "The impact of increases in subsidiary autonomy and network relationships on performance," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 1158-1172.

    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. Ruth V. Aguilera & Valentina Marano & Ilir Haxhi, 2019. "International corporate governance: A review and opportunities for future research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(4), pages 457-498, June.
    2. Ayse Saka-Helmhout & Mike Geppert, 2011. "Different Forms of Agency and Institutional Influences within Multinational Enterprises," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 51(5), pages 567-592, October.
    3. Poulis, Konstantinos & Poulis, Efthimios & Plakoyiannaki, Emmanuella, 2013. "The role of context in case study selection: An international business perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 304-314.
    4. John Geary & Roberta Aguzzoli, 2016. "Miners, politics and institutional caryatids: Accounting for the transfer of HRM practices in the Brazilian multinational enterprise," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 47(8), pages 968-996, October.
    5. John Dunning & Sarianna Lundan, 2008. "Institutions and the OLI paradigm of the multinational enterprise," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 573-593, December.
    6. Stoian, Carmen & Filippaios, Fragkiskos, 2008. "Dunning's eclectic paradigm: A holistic, yet context specific framework for analysing the determinants of outward FDI: Evidence from international Greek investments," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 349-367, June.
    7. Matten, Dirk & Geppert, Mike, 2004. "Work systems in heavy engineering: the role of national culture and national institutions in multinational corporations," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 177-198.
    8. Boussebaa, Mehdi, 2015. "Control in the multinational enterprise: The polycentric case of global professional service firms," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 696-703.
    9. Bjørn T. Asheim & Bernd Ebersberger & Sverre J. Herstad, 2012. "MNCs between the Local and the Global: Knowledge Bases, Proximity and Distributed Knowledge Networks," Chapters, in: Martin Heidenreich (ed.), Innovation and Institutional Embeddedness of Multinational Companies, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Magier-Łakomy Ewa & Rozkwitalska Małgorzata, 2013. "Country-of-origin effect on manager’s competence evaluations," Journal of Intercultural Management, Sciendo, vol. 5(4), pages 5-21, December.
    11. J. Ryan Lamare & Patrick Gunnigle & Paul Marginson & Gregor Murray, 2013. "Union Status and Double-Breasting at Multinational Companies in Three Liberal Market Economies," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(3), pages 696-722, May.
    12. Christine M. Chan & Jialin Du, 2021. "The dynamic process of pro-market reforms and foreign affiliate performance: When to seek local, subnational, or global help?," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(9), pages 1854-1870, December.
    13. Veugelers, Reinhilde & Cassiman, Bruno, 2004. "Foreign subsidiaries as a channel of international technology diffusion: Some direct firm level evidence from Belgium," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 455-476, April.
    14. Alex Bryson & Lucy Stokes & David Wilkinson, 2023. "Is pupil attainment higher in well-managed schools?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 129-144, January.
    15. Conti, Claudio Ramos & Parente, Ronaldo & de Vasconcelos, Flávio C., 2016. "When distance does not matter: Implications for Latin American multinationals," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1980-1992.
    16. Liao, Tsai-Ju, 2015. "Local clusters of SOEs, POEs, and FIEs, international experience, and the performance of foreign firms operating in emerging economies," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 66-76.
    17. Christian Cordes & Stephan Müller & Georg Schwesinger & Sarianna M. Lundan, 2022. "Governance structures, cultural distance, and socialization dynamics: further challenges for the modern corporation," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 371-397, April.
    18. Rene Cabral & Andre Varella Mollick & Joao Ricardo Faria, 2010. "Capital and Labour Mobility and their Impacts on Mexico's Regional Labour Markets," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(9), pages 1523-1542.
    19. Jinqian Deng & Na Zhang & Fayyaz Ahmad & Muhammad Umar Draz, 2019. "Local Government Competition, Environmental Regulation Intensity and Regional Innovation Performance: An Empirical Investigation of Chinese Provinces," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-17, June.
    20. Clampit, Jack & Gaffney, Nolan & Fabian, Frances & Stafford, Thomas, 2023. "Institutional misalignment and escape-based FDI: A prospect theory lens," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(3).

    More about this item

    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:eee:worbus:v:41:y:2006:i:1:p:66-80. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620401/description#description .

    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.