In the introductory article to a special issue on multinational corporations (MNCs) and employment practices, the authors highlight the key features of an international survey research project. Research teams carried out parallel surveys in four countries: Canada, Ireland, Spain, and the United...

The authors examine whether U.S. multinational companies (MNCs) are distinctive in the degree to which they exert direct control over policy on human resources and employment relations (HR/ER) in their foreign subsidiaries. The results confirm the distinctiveness of U.S. MNCs in their greater...

This paper addresses the issue of 'reverse diffusion' of employment practices in multinational companies, which is defined as the transfer of practices from foreign subsidiaries to operations in the country of origin. It adds to the literature by examining the influence of the parent business...

Multinational companies (MNCs) from different countries of origin are widely held to have distinct preferences regarding the presence of employee representative structures and the form that employee 'voice' over management decisions takes. Such preferences are said to derive from the national...

A key current academic debate is the interaction between multinationals companies and national business systems, both the parent-country system in which they are embedded, and the host systems in which they operate. This article presents evidence from recent case-study research on German...

German companies, used to operating in their distinctive domestic business environment, have had to learn new 'rules of the game' as they have internationalized. There are signs that they are adopting some of the characteristics of more mature international companies, particularly those from an...