Host-country effects in coordinated, liberal and hybrid market economies: US subsidiaries in Switzerland, Germany and the UK

Abstract

The paper addresses two as yet unexplored issues regarding the uptake of host-country employment relations practices, contributing to a better understanding of findings for hybrid host-market economies such as Switzerland. Host-country effects are differentiated by practices that belong to either industrial relations or education and training, as per the varieties of capitalism approach. There follows an investigation of the extent to which foreign subsidiaries' overall uptake of host-country employment relations practices is determined by the subsidiary incorporation type and size for practices related to industrial relations and education and training. Analyses of US subsidiaries in Switzerland, and, in contrast, those in Germany and the UK, on the whole support the propositions that distinguish between industrial relations and education and training-related host-country effects.