Affiliation:
1. Markus O. Helfen is a Senior Research Fellow and Designate Visiting Professor of Human Resource Management and Employment Relations at Freie Universität Berlin. Elke Schüßler is an Assistant Professor of Organization Theory at Freie Universität Berlin. Dimitris Stevis is a Professor of International Politics at Colorado State University, Fort Collins.
Abstract
Extensive research has shown that European multinational enterprises (MNEs) have a propensity to avoid collective employee representation when going abroad. This study investigates whether Global Framework Agreements (GFAs) can reverse this pattern by comparing how four European MNEs—two from Germany and two from Sweden—implement GFAs in the United States, a country with weak collective representation rights. The authors find that an MNE’s home country labor relations (LR) system mediates whether GFAs support collective representation in the United States. Sweden’s monistic LR system, in which unions are the dominant organizations legally representing workers, gives unions the power to directly influence the negotiation and implementation of GFAs. By contrast, Germany’s dualistic LR system, in which unions and works councils share worker representation, weakens the influence of unions on implementing the GFA. MNEs’ home country LR systems thus influence how transnational instruments are used to improve collective representation in host countries.
Subject
Management of Technology and Innovation,Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management,Strategy and Management
Cited by
20 articles.
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