Hartmut Wächter

Subsidiary responses to institutional duality: Collective representation practices of US multinationals in Britain and Germany

New institutionalist studies of human resource management in multinational companies argue that subsidiaries are faced with institutional duality-pressures to conform to parent company practices and to the local institutional environment in which they are based. To date, they have concentrated on how subsidiaries respond to parent company pressures. This article considers how subsidiary management responds to both parent company demands and host country pressures in trying to reconcile the challenges of institutional duality. It focuses on how such responses are shaped by the interdependence of subsidiary management with the parent company and the local environment. It does so by comparing case study evidence of collective representation practices in US-owned subsidiaries in Britain and Germany.

German co‐determination ‐ Quo vadis? A study of the implementation of new management concepts in a German steel company

Examines the pressures on the German co‐determination system in the context of the introduction of total quality management (TQM) in a German steel company. The case is a particularly interesting research site because the German steel industry is regulated by the most extensive co‐determination laws in Germany and the German company in question is French‐owned, enabling comparisons to be drawn with the introduction of new management methods in France. Outlines the positions of the works council and labour director towards TQM and the difficulties that they experienced when it was introduced. Concludes by portraying two possible scenarios of the effects of new management techniques on German co‐determination.

Human Resource Management in a Unified Germany

From a comparative viewpoint, German personnel management can be seen as a configuration shaped by a specific form of “corporatism”, worker participation, and the educational system (particularly the apprenticeship tradition). Although challenges from new technology and internationalization have prompted new concepts and negotiation patterns, the approach to personnel management in Germany has not changed drastically. This is reflected in a reluctance to accept, or translate, the label of “human resource management”. The historically unique constellation of a rapid integration of a previously separate and potentially hostile state (the GDR) into the Federal Republic has brought about new strategies and procedures of co‐operation between employers, unions, and state agencies. They also follow, however, the lines of German traditions and institutions.

The Americanisation of the European business system

This article examines the impact of contemporary business practices within the American business system on established patterns of industrial relations (IR) management in European subsidiaries of US multinationals, specifically how established firm-level settlements for the management of IR may or may not combine with host-country effects to constrain such innovations. The empirical material leads us to evaluate subsidiaries of US multinationals as a contingent factor indicating that institutional effects at the level of the national business system are likely to be more embedded than the effects of ownership on employment and IR at firm level.

Multinationale Unternehmen und internationales Personalmanagement: Eine vergleichende institutionalistische Perspektive

In diesem Beitrag wird ein Ansatz zur Erforschung der Personalpolitik in multinationalen Unternehmen vorgestellt, der sich inzwischen zu einem eigenständigen Forschungsstrang in der internationalen Personalforschung entwickelt hat. Dieser Ansatz hat im deutschsprachigen Raum bisher nur wenig Aufmerksamkeit erfahren. Es werden sowohl die Vorgehensweise in der Forschung als auch bereits vorliegende Befunde empirischer Studien auf der Basis dieses Ansatzes vorgestellt. Anschließend erfolgt eine kritische Würdigung des Ansatzes und der empirischen Studien. Dabei werden der Erklärungsbeitrag und die Erklärungsgrenzen des Ansatzes mit Blick auf die Personalpolitik multinationaler Unternehmen herausgearbeitet. Darüber hinaus werden Überlegungen zu den Entwicklungspotenzialen dieses Ansatzes angestellt.

„Global Players“: Personalpolitik amerikanischer Multis zwischen Machtausübung und institutionellem Zwang

Das Management und insbesondere die Personalpolitik international tatiger Unternehmen (MNC) sind in der BWL und in der Managementlehre schon oft behandelt worden. Der Grosteil der Literatur lasst sich zwei Richtungen zuordnen, von denen sich das im Folgenden beschriebene Projekt abheben will.