What happened when the Americans took over Britain's electricity industry? Exploring trans-national sector effects on employment relations

Abstract

Pressures stemming from the country of origin are seen increasingly as the single most important influence on multinational companies, and American managements are famed particularly for their marked preferences for non-unionism and for pay systems linked to performance. The dramatic inflow of American investment into the British electricity industry from 1996 onwards provides an opportunity to observe the development of these influences. In fact, employment relations reform was not driven by the concerns of American owners to any significant degree, but tended to follow patterns already very well established in the utilities sector in the UK. This can only be understood in the context of similar developments in sector-level governance in both countries, and the processes through which this drove international strategies at higher levels, affecting investment and organizational structure.

Keywords:

• Multinationals
• industrial relations
• privatization
• regulation
• country-of-origin
• sector

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the trade union officers and representatives that supported this research so generously, responding to our queries with patience and candour. Thanks also to Anthony Ferner and to the editor and referees of this journal for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Responsibility for any errors remains of course with us.

Notes

1 Data considered here were generated during fieldwork exploring human resource management in multinational companies, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (award number R000238350). The project team consisted of Phil Almond, Peter Butler, Ian Clark, Trevor Colling, Anthony Ferner, Len Holden and Michael Muller-Camen (all then at De Montfort University, Leicester) and Tony Edwards (Kings College, London).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian Clark

Ian Clark, International Management and Organization, Birmingham Business School, University House, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK ([email protected]).