Published in the AbstractThis paper uses a comparative institutionalist approach combined with a power/interests perspective to examine the processes whereby diversity policy is "internationalized" by US multinational companies. It argues that the process of policy transfer to UK subsidiaries is complicated by incomplete and contested "institutionalization" of diversity within the US itself, and by differing conceptions of diversity between the US and the UK. The ability of actors within the UK subsidiaries to mobilize and deploy specific power resources allows them to resist the full implementation of corporate diversity policy, leading to a range of compromise accommodations. It is argued that the findings have more general implications for analyzing the transfer of HR practices between national business systems.

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

This article argues that the institutional "home" and "host" country effects on employment policy and practice in multinational corporations (MNCs) need to be analyzed within a framework which takes more account both of the multiple levels of embeddedness experienced by the MNC, and processes of negotiation at different levels within the firm. Using in-depth case study analysis of the human resource (HR) structure and industrial relations and pay policies of a large U.S.-owned MNC in the IT sector, across Germany, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the article attempts to move towards such a framework.

This article argues that international human resource management has failed to examine adequately the relations between multinational corporations (MNCs) and the geographies they operate in at sub-national levels. In particular, it needs to go much further in integrating insights from literatures on changing levels of governance, the role of sub-national sites of regulation in the creation and transmission of knowledge, and the geographical and organizational fragmentation of production. In reviewing these literatures alongside relevant contributions within international human resource management, it develops a research agenda by which the degree and nature of sub-national embeddedness of MNCs, and their effects on sub-national business and employment systems, can be analysed.

This article builds on the existing literature on ‘country of origin’ effects on the management of human resources in multinational corporations (MNCs). It adopts a relational perspective in order to examine how actors at different levels within multinationals develop identities, and how these interact. Exploring the different sets of relations present within MNCs highlights two major areas in which the existing literature is deficient: first, a more integrated perspective on country effects within MNCs is dependent on an understanding of the potential for firms to strategically segment HR policies; second, more consideration needs to be given to the potential separation, either full or partial, of country of ownership and country of management effects, in order to reach a more realistic analysis of how national business systems shape international HRM.