Building a Local Corporate Presence: Social Interaction between the Multinational and Local Societies

Abstract

Company values, interests and social interaction within Electra create preconditions for a decentralized construction of employment practices across the subsidiaries. The construction process is closely related to the local context, in particular host countries and host cities (Maurice and Sorge 2000; Michailova 2002). The local context refers to particular geographical, institutional, political and social settings, and is part of a national host-country institutional space. The local context particularly relevant for subsidiary employment practices includes local labour markets, local employment standards and informal norms, common business practices, industrial relations systems, and legal regulation. In all these domains, Electra encounters local actors and eventually develops social interaction with them, in order to gain local knowledge and secure an optimal embedding process. Exploring Electra’s presence in the host countries’ local contexts and social interaction with local labour market actors, governmental and non-governmental actors is the aim of this chapter.