The paper examines whether in light of heightened globalisastion pressures, German
multinational companies operating in an Anglo-Saxon setting have developed
approaches to employee relations which may point to the diminishing international
competitiveness of the German approach. It also assesses whether the wider knockon
effect may exert pressures o the German model of labour relations to converge
towards the Anglo-Saxon model. The paper is based on a survey of German
subsidiaries in the UK, their parent companies and a comparative analysis to the
Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998. The study reveals the existence of a
country-of-origin effect in the UK subsidiaries and finds little evidence of attempts to
import Anglo-Saxon style practices into the parent companies German locations,
despite some indications of possible reverse diffusion effects with regard to direct
employee involvement schemes. With the current reforms in the German industrial
relations system already providing a broader scope for more flexible collective
employee relations responses, evolving pattern in German multinationals may be
described as a "flexible collective approach with a HRM dimension". Taking into
account possible wider knock-on effects onto other companies in the German
economy, the paper predicts a continuation of the path dependent reform trajectory in
the German model