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Competition and constraint: Economic globalization and human resource practices in 23 European countries

Ferry Koster (Department of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands AND TIAS School for Business and Society, Tilburg, The Netherlands)
Rafael Wittek (University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands)

Employee Relations

ISSN: 0142-5455

Article publication date: 8 February 2016

1733

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate three distinct hypotheses about the relationship between human resource (HR) practices (discretion and skill enhancement) and the level of trade openness and foreign direct investments of countries.

Design/methodology/approach

The study applies multilevel analysis using data of 16,701 employees living in 23 European countries.

Findings

Based on the multilevel analysis mixed support is found for the hypothesis stating that economic openness is curvilinearly related (an inverted U) to the use of HR practices. While this holds for discretion, it does not for skill enhancement.

Originality/value

While economic globalization is often mentioned as an important factor in understanding organizational relations, there have only been few international comparative studies explicitly linking measures of economic openness and HR practices. This study investigate whether economic globalization is important or not.

Keywords

Citation

Koster, F. and Wittek, R. (2016), "Competition and constraint: Economic globalization and human resource practices in 23 European countries", Employee Relations, Vol. 38 No. 2, pp. 286-303. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-11-2014-0130

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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