Between Boston and Berlin: American MNCs and the shifting contours of industrial relations in Ireland

Abstract

Drawing on detailed qualitative case studies and utilizing a national business system lens, we explore a largely underrepresented debate in the literature, namely the nature of change in a specific but critical element of business systems, that is the industrial relations (IR) institutions of the State and the impact of MNCs thereon. Given the critical mass of US investment in Ireland, we examine how US MNCs manage IR in their Irish subsidiaries, how the policies and practices they pursue have impacted on the Irish IR system, and more broadly their role in shaping the host institutional environment. Overall, we conclude that there is some evidence of change in the IR system, change that we trace indirectly to the US MNC sector. Further, the US MNC sector displays evidence of elements of the management of IR that is clearly at odds with Irish traditions. Thus, in these firms we point to the emergence of a hybrid system of the management of IR and the establishment of new traditions more reflective of US business system.

Keywords:

• change
• hybridization
• human resources and industrial relations
• Ireland
• MNCs
• national business system
• US

Acknowledgements

This article draws on the Irish node of an international study of employment relations and HRM in MNCs, co-ordinated by Professor Anthony Ferner. This study involves a large number of researchers from De Montfort University and King's College, London, UK, the Universities of Trier and Erfurt, Germany, IESE Business School, Spain and the University of Limerick, Ireland. The Irish study is supported by the University of Limerick Research Office, the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Labour Relations Commission.

Notes

1. Differences between MNCs and indigenous firms with regard to management practices in Ireland have long since been dichotomized as home versus host country effects (cf. Geary and Roche 2001; Turner et al. 2001). Our use of the terminology of hybridization draws from our choice of theoretical lens. Specifically, the national business systems/varieties of capitalism literature describe changes in host environments such as those under study in these terms.

2. As a reviewer correctly noted, adversarialism is perhaps a more accurate description of Irish IR, allowing as it does for differing degrees of conflict in underlying relationships. Given that we are drawing on von Prondzynski, we have chosen to retain his terminology in this paper with the aforementioned caveat.

3. In a similar vein to the point about adversarialism, it could be argued that a term such as ‘resort to third-party institutions’ may be more appropriate here. However, given that we are drawing on von Prondzynski, we have chosen to retain his terminology in this paper.

4. It is important to point out that increased resistance to union penetration is not exclusive to Ireland, but also evident internationally. Even in the US, where employers have traditionally opposed union recognition, we find evidence of an increased intensity in opposition since the 1980s (cf. Blanchflower and Freeman 1992), while the UK Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys indicate a fall in union recognition among newly established companies (Cully, Woodland, O’Reilly and Dix 1999). Further, US MNCs are not alone in the shift to non-unionism in the Irish context. They were however in the vanguard and Wallace (2003) points to a demonstration effect whereby the successful establishment of non-union plants by Intel and later Motorola and Hewlett Packard, did much to legitimize this approach and encourage its uptake among other new MNCs (see also, Gunnigle et al. 2006).

5. The ICTU is the central coordinating body for the Irish trade union movement. It represents the collective will of the Irish trade union movement at a national level.

6. An independent State office created to intervene and investigate industrial disputes with a view to promoting settlement. Focus is generally on individual disputes and the type of case that can be heard is limited.