Employee relations in German multinationals in an Anglo-Saxon setting: towards a Germanic version of the Anglo-Saxon approach?

Abstract

This study examines whether German multinationals operating in an Anglo-Saxon setting design their employee relations primarily on the German or the Anglo-Saxon model. The authors’ cross-sectional comparison with UK-owned firms provides no evidence of a transfer of the current German approach but does point to a distinctive Germanic version of the ‘high-road’ variant of the Anglo-Saxon approach. Intra-German analysis shows that this is most pronounced among the types of subsidiaries that are particularly significant for disseminating employment relations innovations across the multinational, but that these also have the highest incidence of collective arrangements and the lowest incidence of the ‘low-road’ variant of the Anglo-Saxon approach. In the light of recent reforms in the German industrial relations system, the findings point to an emerging new flexible collective approach with a comprehensive direct employee involvement dimension.