Philip Almond

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.

The local in the global: regions, employment systems and multinationals

This article examines how the international competition to attract and retain foreign direct investment shapes the governance of business and employment systems. Through an examination of global production networks and the changing role of the state in economic governance, it highlights the sub-national regional space as an important level of institutional adaptation. Specifically, it explores how regions organise themselves to compete for inward investment, and the potential role of industrial relations actors within this. It argues that both research into multinational companies, and of the governance of employment systems more generally, need to incorporate an analysis of regional competition for productive investment more fully into their analysis.

Multinationals and regional economies: embedding the regime shoppers?

In a context in which multinational corporations are increasingly able to choose their locations of production, this article examines how social and political governance actors in host regional economies attempt to attract and retain foreign direct investment. Based on a comparative study of two regions in each of Canada, Ireland, Spain and the UK, it shows both national and in some cases sub-national variations in the nature of attempts to attract and retain foreign investment, as well as in the actors involved. The article also discusses how these differences in policy interact with the characteristics of specific foreign investors. Our findings support arguments that attempts to embed regime-shopping firms are facilitated by active governance from social as well as state actors.