Employee Relations in Foreign-Owned Subsidiaries : German Multinational Companies in the UK

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 List of Tables and Figure......Page 8 Preface......Page 9 Abbreviations......Page 12 Background......Page 14 The role of multinational companies......Page 17 Rationale and objectives......Page 20 Approach and structure......Page 22 Headline findings......Page 24 Overview of book structure......Page 25 Employee relations in Germany......Page 27 Employee relations in the United Kingdom......Page 32 Conclusion......Page 36 Introduction......Page 38 Employee relations systems: theoretical issues......Page 39 Studies of ER systems in German and US subsidiaries......Page 43 Possible outcomes in the ER systems of subsidiaries......Page 45 Conclusion......Page 48 Introduction......Page 50 Trade unions......Page 51 Non-union management-initiated representative structures......Page 60 Non-union, independent collective voice: works councils......Page 62 Direct voice (high-involvement systems)......Page 70 Partnership approaches......Page 76 Limitations of previous studies......Page 82 Conclusion......Page 85 Introduction......Page 88 Unitary and holistic voice mechanisms......Page 89 Collective and direct involvement employee relations systems......Page 90 Conclusion......Page 94 Questionnaire design and data collection......Page 97 Measures, classifications and operationalization......Page 99 Variable transformation and categorization......Page 105 Regression analysis......Page 107 Modelling ordinal variables......Page 111 Particularities of the comparative German-US study......Page 114 Preliminary remarks......Page 117 The dimensions of employee relations......Page 118 Employee relations approaches......Page 119 Summary and concluding remarks......Page 122 Preliminary remarks and observations......Page 125 Representative channels and individual direct practices......Page 126 Voice mechanisms and employee relations dimensions......Page 128 Collective and individualistic employee relations patterns......Page 139 Employee relations approaches......Page 145 Summary......Page 159 9 Conclusions and Policy Implications......Page 168 Appendix......Page 180 References......Page 197 C......Page 214 G......Page 215 M......Page 216 R......Page 217 W......Page 218 Z......Page 219

This book is based on a research project, funded by the Hans Bockler Stiftung, on different employee relations systems in German owned subsidiaries in the UK. The study investigated whether German firms used the liberal institutional system for employee relations in the UK as a means to escape from the heavily regulated system in German firms. The main thrust of the study was to examine the performance implications of the different types of employee relations used by German owned subsidiaries. This book examines the debate on the links between employee relation systems in multinational corporations and performance as well as the debate on convergence of employee relations systems in multinational corporations.

"Based on new research, this book examines the performance implications of different employee relations in German-owned subsidiaries in the UK. Are German firms using the liberal institutional system for employee relations in the UK as a means to escape from the heavily regulated system in Germany? The authors explore approaches common to the best performing subsidiaries and the emergence of global best practices."--Jacket Institutional environments and employee relations in Germany Overview of employee relations in Germany and the UK Employee relations in multinational corporations Firm performance and employee relations Voice in employee relations systems Data and methodology The characteristics of voice mechanisms in German subsidiaries Voice mechanisms and performance Conclusions, and policy implications. Uses new research to examine performance implications of different employee relations in German firms in the UK, Are they using the liberal institutional system for employee relations in the UK to escape the heavily regulated system in Germany? The authors explore best practice approaches common to the best performing subsidiaries.