Trade unions and multinational companies: A multi-level challenge

Trade unions face major challenges in developing effective responses to the growing international scope, integration and complexity of multinational companies' operations. There is marked variation in trade unions' responses, which may be local and national or cross-border in nature. Focusing on cross-border union co-operation and action, the paper shows that considerations of both structural and institutional contingency and union agency are important in accounting for the marked variation in union responses. In examining contingency, the paper highlights how a series of institutional and structural factors, relating to the national and regional institutional environments in which MNCs are based, and where they locate their operations; sector of operation; and the business structure and strategy of MNCs, tend to shape the nature of union responses. By exploring the role of agency from two perspectives - bottom up and top down - the multi-level nature of the challenge confronting unions in establishing viable forms of transnational cooperation and action is demonstrated. A perceptible shift is underway towards contexts in which local or national responses are no longer adequate or appropriate, and towards those which call for cross-border initiatives

Europeanisation and regime competition: industrial relations and EU enlargement

"Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass die nationalen Systeme industrieller Beziehungen im konkurrierenden Verhältnis zwischen Regimewettbewerb und Europäisierung stehen, untersucht der Autor zunächst im Kontext der 15 alten Mitgliedsstaaten der Europäischen Union diese beiden Tendenzen. Dem folgt die Erörterung der Konsequenzen der Osterweiterung vom Mai 2004. Die Erweiterung hat eine größere Varianz nationaler Arbeitsmarktverfassungen sowie der Lohn- und Produktivitätsniveaus mit sich gebracht. Das Spektrum für Regimewettbewerb hat sich dadurch vergrößert und gefährdet den Prozess der Europäisierung industrieller Beziehungen. Die Aussichten für eine verstärkte soziale Dimension im Zuge der europäischen wirtschaftlichen Integration hängen nun von der Entstehung von Druck aus den neuen Mitgliedsstaaten in Mittel- und Osteuropa ebenso ab wie vom Erneuerungswillen der Gruppe der alten Mitgliedsstaaten hinsichtlich der sozialen Dimension." (Autorenreferat)"Contending that regime competition and Europeanisation of industrial relations are two competing tendencies which interact, the paper elaborates on the two processes in the context of the 'old' European Union of fifteen member states. The consequences of the EU's May 2004 eastern enlargement are then addressed. Simultaneously enlargement, by embracing amore diverse set of national labour market structures, wage and productivity levels, has both increased the scope for regime competition and threatened to stall the process of Europeanisation. Prospects for an augmented social dimension to accompany European economic and market integration rest on the emergence of pressure from the new member states of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as its renewal amongst the countries of the 'old' EU." (author's abstract

European Works Councils - Opening the Door to European Bargaining?

"Are European works councils the first step on the road to European level collective bargaining? Factors against this view include the Directive's limitation to information rights, the existence of a clear demarcation between information and bargaining in many EU countries, the national focus of most European unions, and the increasingly divisionalised structure of companies. Nevertheless, as product markets become more internationalised, multinationals develop more international employee management systems, and unions seek cross- border comparisons of employee rights and benefits, there are real pressures towards a form of ‘armslength’ bargaining at European level. In this the parties do not formally negotiate at the European level, but they do influence and anticipate each other's at national level." (author's abstract)"Sind europäische Betriebsräte ein erster Schritt auf dem Weg zu Kollektivverhandlungen auf europäischer Ebene? Gegen diese Sichtweise sprechen folgende Faktoren: die in der EU-Richtlinie vorgenommene Begrenzung auf Informationsrechte; die klare Abgrenzung zwischen Information und Kollektivverhandlungen in vielen europäischen Ländern; das nationale Interesse der meisten europäischen Gewerkschaften; sowie die häufig nach Sparten gegliederten Unternehmensstrukturen. Gleichwohl werden mit der weiteren Internationalisierung der Produktmärkte in vielen multinationalen Unternehmen transnationale Systeme der Arbeitsbeziehungen entstehen und die Gewerkschaften zunehmend grenzüberschreitende Vergleiche von Arbeitsnormen und Arbeitnehmerrechten vornehmen. Es gibt folglich einen realen Druck in Richtung „indirekter Kollektivverhandlungen“ auf europäischer Ebene. Nach diesem Verständnis verhandeln die Parteien zwar nicht formal auf europäischer Ebene, sondern beeinflussen sich gegenseitig und antizipieren ihre jeweiligen Reaktionen auf nationaler Ebene." (Autorenreferat

Externalisation and internalisation of collective bargaining in Europe: variation in the role of large companies

"In Reaktion auf die Internationalisierung der Märkte versuchen die großen Unternehmen seit einiger Zeit, ihren tarifpolitischen Handlungsspielraum auszuweiten, so dass maßgeschneiderte Lösungen für ihre Geschäftsbereiche gefunden werden können. In diesem Aufsatz werden vor diesem Hintergrund den Wandel in der Bedeutung von Verbands- und Haustarifverträgen untersucht. Dabei konzentriert sich die Analyse auf die Entwicklung in großen Unternehmen im Hinblick auf zwei Dimensionen: Externalisierung/ Internalisierung (als Problem der Bedeutung von sektoralen Verbandstarifen) und Zentralisierung/ Dezentralisierung (als Problem der Verhandlungsebene im Unternehmen). Methodisch beruht die Untersuchung auf einem Vergleich des Metallverarbeitungs- und Bankensektors auf der Grundlage von Fallstudien aus Belgien, Deutschland, Italien und Großbritannien. Die Ergebnisse dokumentieren die Vielfalt der 'Dezentralisierungs'-Formen im Unternehmensvergleich wie auch innerhalb der Unternehmen, die sowohl auf Länder-, insbesondere aber auch auf Sektoreffekte zurückzuführen ist. Denn beide Kategorien von Effekten sind relevant für die Entwicklung der Machtverhältnisse und Transaktionskosten, die ihrerseits die Attraktivität alternativer tarifpolitischer Arrangements beeinflussen." (Autorenreferat)"In recent years major employers have sought greater scope to negotiate working und employment practices specific to the circumstances of the company or its constituent units, reflecting the internationalisation of markets and competition. This article examines the changing balance between multi-employer and single-employer collective bargaining in this context. The analysis focuses on developments in largo firms across two distinct but related dimensions: externalisation-internalisation (engagement with sect oral multi-employer bargaining) and centralisation-decentralisation (the level of internalisation within the company). The treatment is comparative, analysing developments in metalworking and banking through case studier from Belgium, Germany Italy and Britain. The results demonstrate that 'decentralisation' takes various forms, within and without the company. Furthermore, sector features are at least as significant as country factors in explaining change. This is because the re-formation of multi-employer bargaining reflects changes in power relations and transaction costs that are peculiar to the industry as well as the national context." (author's abstract

The effects of market economy and foreign MNE subsidiaries on the convergence and divergence of HRM

This study explores patterns of human resource management (HRM) practices across market economies, and between indigenous firms and foreign MNE subsidiary operations, offering a novel perspective on convergence and divergence. Applying institutional theorizing to improve our understanding of convergence/ divergence as a process and an outcome, data collected from nine countries at three points in time over a decade confirm that convergence and divergence occur to different extents in a non-linear fashion, and vary depending on the area of HRM practice observed. Patterns of adoption and convergence/ divergence are explained through the effect of institutional constraints, which vary between liberal and coordinated market economies, and between indigenous firms and foreign MNE subsidiaries. The study contributes a more graded conceptualization of convergence/ divergence, which reflects the complex dynamic reality of international business

The Impact of Brand Quality on Shareholder Wealth

This study examines the impact of brand quality on three components of shareholder wealth: stock returns, systematic risk, and idiosyncratic risk. The study finds that brand quality enhances shareholder wealth insofar as unanticipated changes in brand quality are positively associated with stock returns and negatively related to changes in idiosyncratic risk. However, unanticipated changes in brand quality can also erode shareholder wealth because they have a positive association with changes in systematic risk. The study introduces a contingency theory view to the marketing-finance interface by analyzing the moderating role of two factors that are widely followed by investors. The results show an unanticipated increase (decrease) in current-period earnings enhances (depletes) the positive impact of unanticipated changes in brand quality on stock returns and mitigates (enhances) their deleterious effects on changes in systematic risk. Similarly, brand quality is more valuable for firms facing increasing competition (i.e., unanticipated decreases in industry concentration). The results are robust to endogeneity concerns and across alternative models. The authors conclude by discussing the nuanced implications of their findings for shareholder wealth, reporting brand quality to investors, and its use in employee evaluation

European industrial relations: An increasingly fractured landscape?

In the face of continuing European market and economic integration, European industrial relations has become more fractured. This fracturing is occurring in two senses. First, the main institutional pillars of the industrial relations dimension of the European social model (or models) are weakening. Second, common features of industrial relations across countries are no longer so apparent. Further, industrial relations outcomes such as wages and conditions have become more unequal and less solidaristic. The immediate causes of this fracturing are eastern enlargement of the EU, and the nature of the responses to the financial and economic crisis propounded by the European authorities and some national governments. These have sought to accelerate European integration by removing perceived institutional rigidities. At an underlying level, a more fractured industrial relations landscape is the result of asymmetries as between countries in the effects and impact of market and economic integration and the further exacerbation of the imbalance between negative and positive integration measures in favour of the former. The paper concludes with proposals, directed at the EU as well as national level, which could stem or even reverse the decline in the institutional pillars of European industrial relations and result in a less fractured landscape