The Multinational Company In Europe

The Social Effects of FDI on Multinational Companies and Domestic Firms compares and contrasts wages, working conditions and industrial relations processes in multinational and domestic companies. This book is an effort to map the social effects of FDI in a number of EU member states, in relation to the prevailing patterns of internationalization.

Some of the key questions in employment relations, comparative business, and globalization revolve around the extent to which businesses embody a national business system, and what happens when these employment models are exported to other national settings. By exploring the variety of ways in which US multinationals deal with these issues, and their reception, when operating in Europe, Phil Almond, Anthony Ferner, and their contributors examine the interaction between globalizationand national 'Varieties of Capitalism'.Using the findings of a four-year international exploration of the management of employment relations in US multinationals in the UK, Germany, Ireland, and Spain, this book examines what is distinctively 'American' about these companies, and how this notion is exported. The process is shown to be one that is not a technical managerial one, but one that is highly political, and 'negotiated', in which groups and individuals at different levels within the company try to influence the terms oftransfer.These questions are not only of theoretical importance, but also of practical significance in terms of the transfer of management knowledge and 'best practice'. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and advanced students of HRM, International Business, and Organization Studies, as well as HR practitioners concerned with US multinationals operating in Europe.

The book focuses on the major environmental implications stemming from the growth of the multinational enterprise in a multiple currency world; the international transfer of technology; industrial relations and labour utilization in foreign-owned firms in the UK; multinational companies and trade union interests; foreign direct investment, the balance of payments and trade flows; the multinational enterprise and developing countries; government policy alternatives and the problem of international sharing and a case study of a multinational enterprise in Europe. A survey of the background to the multinational enterprise and concluding summaries ensure that this book is one of the most widely embracing volumes available on the subject.

After a decade of Eurosclerosis the EC is moving with renewed economic growth and increasing multinational investment toward a single European market under the heading "Project 1992". The creation of a single EC market creates dynamic adjustment needs and opens up new opportunities for international business in a period of intensified global competition and dramatic politico-economic changes. Since the mid-1980s Eastern Europe is undergoing a radical shift towards market-based economic systems -a difficult and fragile development so far which is further complicated by economic and political unification of Germany in central Europe. After the era of British and, later, U. S. leadership in multinational investment German and Japanese multinational companies are becoming more influential players worldwide. Firms from Germany playa special role because German unification of 1990 implies a bigger home market, but also the diversion of total investment activities towards the greater German home market. While the political divide of Europe has ceased to exist, the economic division is becoming more apparent, and it could indeed transitorily increase because the EC 1992 project primarily generates growth impulses in Western Europe, while systemic transformations in Eastern Europe reduce output growth in the short term.