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The purpose of this paper is to develop an analytical framework to categorize the quality of industrial relations in foreign affiliates. Using the case of foreign affiliates in Germany, this paper further explores what factors shape the quality of industrial relations in foreign affiliates.

Given the scarcity of research on industrial relations in foreign affiliates, this paper is based on conceptual work as well as on a comparative case investigation of 21 foreign affiliates in Germany, involving informants from both labor and management.

Industrial relations in foreign affiliates in Germany can take four different qualities, based on the following: social partnership; conflict partnership; latently adversarial; and adversarial relations. While previous literature focused on country-of-origin effects, the authors’ case-based investigation further revealed that both affiliate effects and multinational corporation (MNC) effects have a strong impact on the quality of industrial relations in foreign affiliates in Germany.

This paper provides systematic evidence on the presumption that micro-organizational and MNC-specific factors are necessary to gain a deeper understanding of industrial relations in MNCs. Moreover, this paper contributes to the discussion on the quality of industrial relations in foreign affiliates in Germany, by placing results from both single-case studies and management surveys into perspective.

This study aims to analyze the effect the liberalization of industrial relations in Germany has had on trade unions’ influence on companies’ decisions. Particular attention is given to European measures of flexibilizing company law and how they affect industrial relations in Germany.

After presenting a theoretical basis regarding industrial relations and corporate governance, the paper then demonstrates, via a case study, the effects of the flexible European company law. It examines the strategic avoidance of trade union activity at SAP, a case that ended up before the European Court of Justice.

The flexibility of European company law allows companies to limit the influence of trade unions on company decisions. Limiting trade unions' internal participation weakens their position overall. Precautionary measures to protect employees’ rights help to reduce the dangers of this process.

The influence of European law brings a new perspective to the transformation of the German industrial relations model. The analysis of the strategy of using the legal type of the European company (Societas Europaea) to limit the internal activity of trade unions demonstrates the connection between institutional settings and corporate governance.

Since 1979, the Conservative government in the UK has introduced wide‐ranging and detailed regulations for the conduct of union internal affairs; a number of other Western industrialized countries have not done so (or have not done so to the same extent) but have continued their tradition of relying on unions themselves to establish democratic procedures. Alternative views of the role of the state in industrial relations underlie these differences. A second, linked article, appearing in Employee Relations (Vol. 15 No. 4), examines state approaches to union autonomy in the context of attitudes towards other controls on union activities and attempts to explain the successive shifts in British policy in the UK since the 1960s.

The paper provides an empirical analysis of the development of and perspectives on industrial relations (IR) in Germany. The first part deals with forms and degrees of institutionalization, which can be used as measures of the maturity and the potential impact of an academic discipline: IR within universities and research institutes, the professional organization, journals, and textbooks. More recent developments are more in line with those in other continental European states than with Anglo-Saxon countries. The weak, slowly progressing degree of institutionalization leads to the conclusion that IR does not constitute a unitary academic discipline. Nevertheless, research and scholarly interest exist. The second part surveys the structure of scholarly research and disciplinary participation. The German case reveals both common and divergent features compared to other countries. An obvious feature of IR is its disciplinary rather than holistic and interdisciplinary character. Empirical research has been less quantitative, and in more recent times less econometrically oriented than in some other countries. Human resource management's (HRM) institutional as well as personal ties with IR are weak and interdisciplinary debates are rare. Another distinctive feature is the large significance of labor law whose study also follows the strict departmentalization of the university structure in Germany. Empirical research in law is still rare and has definitely no solid position within law schools. On the other hand, industrial sociology has had a substantial impact on IR research for several decades and has covered various parts of IR territory. The third part discusses research topics. For quite some time, trade unions and collective bargaining have been the dominant topic. More recently, the focus of interest has shifted from the meso (sectoral or branch) to the micro (enterprise or shop floor) level. Various forms of codetermination, the institutionalized forms of participation in managerial decision-making, have constituted the other traditional research subject. Throughout the 1990s, the process of German unification constituted a “critical juncture” for IR and was an unexpected new topic. More recently, this kind of “unification research” has come to a natural end. Since the early 1990s, there has been a remarkable increase in scholarly work on IR issues concerning employment regulation and governance within the European Union. Last but not least, some traditionally ignored topics are discussed. Numerous labor market-related issues have been of very limited interest for the core of the IR community. Interest in types of atypical or non-standard employment has remained limited. The same limited attention is true for IR in the expanding non-union sector. Another neglected topic is labor relations in the public sector. The outlook discusses future trajectories of IR research. It is argued that the prospects will be encouraging if younger scholars manage to develop a broader, more integrative definition of the field (e.g., “regulation of all aspects of the employment relationship”).

Several scholars have maintained that corporatist arrangements may contribute to a national consensus between groups with opposing interests (Katzenstein, 1985; Siaroff, 1999). Some have even described (neo) corporatism as a strategy for consensus building (Woldendorp, 1995). These general viewpoints seem to imply that participation in the various channels and networks in a corporatist system may influence participants to moderate their ideological attitudes, to become more centrist. Participation has a “civilising” effect. In a study of the Swedish industrial relations system Öberg and Svensson (2002) concluded, however, that there is not much trust across the class borders, a finding which questions the validity of these assumptions. It seems therefore appropriate to test these assumptions empirically in a variety of national settings.

This article examines the relationship between German trade unions and works councils, adopting a framework that identifies three main influences on the works council; the locus of bargaining, economic conditions and the strength of workplace unionism. The findings of an attitudinal survey of works council chairpersons in the metalworking industry, which examines both the influence of trade unions and the impact of unification on workplace industrial relations, are then reported. The results suggest that union density and union workplace organisation does strengthen the loyalty of works councillors to their union and that east German works councillors in metalworking may have more co‐operative relationships with management. Comparisons with the clothing industry, however, show larger sectoral differences, with metalworking works councils much less co‐operative in both the old and new Länder, reflecting the vanguard role of IG Metall and the importance of workplace mobilisation to the union.

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the development of industrial relations (IR) in Germany since the end of the Second World War and discusses the current challenges posed by economic globalisation und European integration.

Combining a political economy, identifying Germany as a coordinated market economy (social market economy), and actor-centred historical institutionalism approach, outlining the formation and strategies of the main social actors within a particular institutional setting, the paper draws on the broad range of research on IR in Germany and its theoretical debates, including own research in the field.

The legacy of the key institutional settings in the post-war era – primarily the social market economy, co-determination at supervisory boards, works councils and sector-based non-ideological unions with their analogously organised employer counterparts, as well as the dual system of interest representation – has shaped the German IR and still underlie the bargaining processes and joint learning processes although trade unions and employers’ associations have been weakened because of loss of membership. In consequence the coverage scope of collective agreements is now somewhat reduced. Despite being declared dead many times, the “German model” of a “conflictual partnership” of capital and labour has survived many turbulent changes affecting it to the core.

The paper presents an original, theoretical informed reconstruction of the German IR and allows an understanding of the current institutional changes and challenges in the light of historical legacies. Additionally the theoretical debates on path dependence and learning processes of collectivities are enriched through its application to the German case.

This paper focuses on the employment practices of both multinational corporations (MNCs) and large national competitors in the German fast‐food industry, such as Burger King, Pizza Hut, Nordsee, McDonald’s, Churrasco and Blockhaus. The paper poses a number of questions. Have the activities of MNCs affected the employment practices of national companies? Are companies adopting union exclusion policies and if so why and to what extent? Does the “country of origin effect” help explain the activities of MNCs? What changes are evident in workers’ terms and conditions and how effective are statutory systems of employee representation in practice? The findings suggest that Anglo‐Saxon‐based MNCs are more likely to adopt anti‐works council and non‐union policies in the sector, suggesting that MNCs may indeed be able to transfer their management practices across borders, imposing their employer‐based systems with little regard for German institutional arrangements.

Against the background of intensified competition for company locations, hotly debates Germany′s position as an international manufacturing base. Aims to identify how far concerns about Germany′s location quality are justified. After examining German direct foreign investment (DFI) developments as an indicator for location quality, analyses important underlying variables, which actually determine the quality of location. The DFI position compares unfavourably with those of other major economies. The German position has deteriorated further since the early 1990s. The eastern region′s location quality seemed to be even poorer than that of the western region. The subsequent comparative analysis of quantifiable cost and burden factors and qualitative factors revealed that, on balance, the relative location weaknesses outweighed the relative strengths in both German regions. Grave disadvantages were disclosed in eastern Germany. A reliable prognosis concerning Germany′s future location quality could not be made, since it is too early to predict the net effect of recent changes of certain location factors.

We start with a study of the present situation in West Germany, not because this is likely to be adopted as the common policy of the EEC — it isn't — but because whatever system is adopted on a wide scale will be largely influenced by the evaluation of the German system which each country will make for itself. We are suggesting that the German system is being treated as a model and what is eventually adopted will be a derivative of the model, perhaps unrecognisable as a derivative, but a derivative nonetheless because the German experience will be the starting point of the public dialogue.