Between Globalization and Capitalist Variety: Multinationals and the International Diffusion of Employment Relations

Abstract

This brief article introduces the principal issues arising from the attempts of globalizing multinationals to transfer employment practices between institutionally diverse national business systems. It summarizes the contribution of the other articles in this special issue to four specific questions relatively neglected in the existing literature. First, what is the impact on multinationals' employment practices of sub-national variation within national business systems? Second, how are employment relations affected by sectoral effects, and in particular by the complex interaction between global sectoral governance regimes and national institutional frameworks? Third, to what extent are the employment practices diffused by multinationals modified through interaction with the institutional characteristics of the host? Lastly, how is the behaviour of multinational companies (MNCs) itself contributing to evolution and change within national institutions of employment relations?

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