This paper examines the phenomenon of 'reverse diffusion' of HR practices in multinational companies, defined as the diffusion of practices from the foreign operations of MNCs to the home country. Drawing on research incorporating fieldwork in the British and German subsidiaries of US-based...

The debate as to the effects of globalization on organizational forms and management practices is well known. Our paper focuses on two institutionalist traditions in organization theory which make a significant contribution to this discussion: new institutionalism and the business-systems...

We develop a conceptual framework to show how agency can be integrated more centrally into new institutionalist work on practice transfer in multinational companies. Drawing on the discussion on institutional multiplicity, we show the potential for agency that subsidiary managers enjoy at the...

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...

This paper examines the policies towards unions and collective representation in US multinationals in the UK. It uses detailed case-study data to argue that the dominant 'ideological norms' of anti-unionism in the US business system shape, but do not determine, the behaviour of US multinational...

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...

In this article we demonstrate that the literature concerning multinational companies (MNCs) and employment relations has failed to develop a convincing explanation of variation in the extent to which MNCs develop a global element to the management of their international workforces. We argue...