Workforce reduction across borders: The role of legal frameworks. (April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bergström, Ola
• Is Part Of: Journal of industrial relations. Volume 60:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 224
• Page End: 245
• Publication Date: 2018-04
• Subjects: Human resource management -- labour law -- multinational corporations -- practice transfer -- workforce reduction; Industrial relations -- Periodicals; Industrial relations -- Australia -- Periodicals; 331.05
• DOI: 10.1177/0022185617731805
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-1856

Abstract

This article reports on a case study of a Swedish multinational corporation where human resource practices were successfully transferred to its foreign subsidiaries in the context of extensively regulated host country institutional environments, offering an opportunity to provide a deeper understanding of the role of legal frameworks when transferring human resource practices within multinational corporations. The findings indicate that the transfer of human resource practices was not simply a matter of passively adapting to host country legal frameworks. A more balanced conceptualisation of the role of legal frameworks in human resource practice transfer is needed, including a view of law as negotiable and open to interpretation and that host country institutional environments can also contribute to and support multinational corporations to transfer human resource practices across foreign subsidiaries.