Multinationals, Employment Practices and Institutional Change from below

Abstract

The standard approach in the comparative institutionalist literature on MNCs is to focus on the outcomes of MNC embedding in host countries, and thereby inquire whether MNCs diffuse best organizational practices throughout host countries or adapt to local employment standards (Ferner, Quintanilla and Sánchez-Runde 2006; Geppert and Mayer 2006). In this book I have taken a different approach and attempted to combine theoretical and empirical insights into the embedding process of MNCs, using case study evidence from Western Europe as well as postsocialist CEE host countries. In particular, I have sought to address three questions. First, the aim was to map subsidiary employment practices and uncover the extent of their diffusion within the MNC organization, or alternatively, their diversity and adaptation to local standards. The second question concerned a theoretical understanding of how MNC embedding and the process of constructing employment practices occurs in Western European and CEE host-country conditions. The final question aimed at uncovering the conditions facilitating the social construction of employment practices. In addressing these questions, I directed attention to the constitutive elements of the MNC’s embedding process and its particular dimension — the construction of subsidiary employment practices. In this concluding chapter I revisit the selected theoretical and empirical aspects of the book’s argument and elaborate implications of the social construction of employment practices for actors’ interests in the host countries, employment standards, and institution building from below. I start with a brief summary of the researched matter.