This article revisits a central question in the debates on the management of multinationals: the balance between centralized policy-making and subsidiary autonomy. It does so through data from a series of case studies on the management of human resources in American multinationals in the UK. Two strands of debate are confronted. The first is the literature on differences between multinationals of different national origins which has shown that US companies tend to be more centralized, standardized, and formalized in their management of human resources. It is argued that the literature has provided unconvincing explanations of this pattern, failing to link it to distinctive features of the American business system in which US multinationals are embedded. The second strand is the wider debate on the balance between centralization and decentralization in multinationals. It is argued that the literature neglects important features of this balance: the contingent oscillation between centralized and decentralized modes of operation and (relatedly) the way in which the balance is negotiated by organizational actors through micro-political processes whereby the external structural constraints on the company are defined and interpreted. In such negotiation, actors' leverage often derives from exploiting differences between the national business systems in which the multinational operates.Keywords: US multinational companies, human resource management, centralization, subsidiary autonomy, power This article uses case-study evidence on the management of employment relations in US multinational companies (MNCs) to consider a staple question of the literature on multinationals: the balance between centralized policymaking and subsidiary autonomy. It confronts two strands of debate. First, it addresses the body of research that has examined differences between MNCs of different national origins. US companies have been found to be more centralized, standardized, and formalized in their management of human resources and other employment-relations policies. While the findings of the present research are broadly in line with those of other studies, it tries to go beyond the existing literature to link observed patterns to distinctive features of the American business system in which these MNCs are 'embedded'.Second, it explores the implications of its findings for some of the dominant themes of the familiar literature on the degree of central control over subsidiary operations. This is one of the key questions of multinational operation; it Organization Studies 25(3): 363-391

An increasing share of the economy is organized around financial capitalism, where capital market actors actively manage their claims on wealth creation and distribution to maximize shareholder value. Drawing on four case studies of private equity buyouts, we challenge agency theory interpretations that they are 'welfare neutral' and show that an alternative source of shareholder value is breach of trust and implicit contracts. We show why management and employment relations scholars need to investigate the mechanisms of financial capitalism to provide a more accurate analysis of the emergence of new forms of class relations and to help us move beyond the limits of the varieties of capitalism approach to comparative institutional analysis.

The word ‘legitimacy’ is seldom far from the lips of practitioners of international affairs. The legitimacy of recent events — such as the wars in Kosovo and Iraq, the post-September 11 war on terror, and instances of humanitarian intervention — have been endlessly debated around the globe. And yet the academic discipline of IR has largely neglected this concept. This book asks that legitimacy be taken seriously, both as a facet of international behaviour with practical consequences, and as a theoretical concept necessary for understanding that behaviour. It offers an historical and theoretical account of international legitimacy. It argues that the development of principles of legitimacy lie at the heart of what is meant by an international society, and in so doing fills a notable void in English school accounts of the subject. The book's conclusion, in the end, is that legitimacy matters, but in a complex way. Legitimacy is not to be discovered simply by straightforward application of other norms, such as legality and morality. Instead, legitimacy is an inherently political condition. What determines its attainability or not is as much the general political condition of international society at any one moment, as the conformity of its specific actions to set normative principles.

This article examines the responses of national governments to the economic crisis that commenced in 2008. We argue that the current search for new bases for accumulation is leading to reforms designed to weaken the position of labour. Moreover, the tendency towards a weakening of labour's position was already evident across different ‘varieties of capitalism’ before the crisis erupted. We discuss the implications for comparative institutional analysis and stress the need for a renewed focus on the underlying dynamics of capitalist economies.

This paper addresses the issue of 'reverse diffusion' of employment practices in multinational companies, which is defined as the transfer of practices from foreign subsidiaries to operations in the country of origin. It adds to the literature by examining the influence of the parent business system in multinationals. Specifically, it addresses how the dominant institutions and established organizational structures and practices in the home country affect the extent and impact of reverse diffusion of employment practices. Drawing on fresh evidence from American-owned multinationals in the UK we argue that there is considerable potential for reverse diffusion to occur among this group of firms. However, we highlight a number of barriers to reverse diffusion that the American business system presents, demonstrating that these constrain both the prevalence and the impact of it in practice. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.