Diffusion of HRM to Europe and the Role of US MNCs: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

There has been considerable debate both among scholars and policy makers concerning the extent to which national systems of industrial relations (IR) and human resource management (HRM) systems are converging. In Europe this debate has concerned both convergence within Europe and convergence between European systems and those of non-European states, most notably the USA. The convergence thesis rests essentially on the notion of competitive isomorphism: that is as firms are increasingly faced with similar competitive environments globally, they will adopt similar (optimally efficient) management practices. For example, a significant part of the European convergence debate concerns whether, in Europe, collective employee relations, mediated by representative institutions are being replaced by HRM management systems designed to establish a direct and individualised relationship between organization and employee. Some commentators have attributed this trend to the influence of a model of HRM derived from practices in the USA and increasingly adopted in Europe. Multinational companies (MNCs) have become of particular importance to this thesis. First, they are often seen as an important channel for the transmission of management practices from one country to another, in particular from the USA to Europe. Second, the transferability of management practices from one national context to another is a matter of considerable practical importance for managers in MNCs. Third, the economic importance of large MNCs and their border spanning nature means that their activities have particular salience to legislators and regulators. This special issue addresses these concerns in three ways. First reviews of the development of HRM in the USA and in Germany and evidence on convergence of HRM practices in Europe help us consider both what may be being transmitted from the USA and the evidence for its transmission. Second three papers, provide different kinds of evidence on the convergence or barriers to convergence of HRM practices between Europe and the USA and the role of MNCs in that transmission. Finally, the special issue concludes with three reviews of in all six books each of which are relevant to the concerns of this special issue.