The experience of work. Is working for an overseas‐owned multinational so different?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425450310456451 |
| Pages | 149-167 |
| Date | 01 April 2003 |
| Published date | 01 April 2003 |
| Author | John Sutherland |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
The experience
of work
149
Employee Relations
Vol. 25 No. 2, 2003
pp. 149-167
#MCB UP Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425450310456451
Received April 2002
Revised August 2002
Accepted August 2002
The experience of work
Is working for an overseas-owned
multinational so different?
John Sutherland
School of Economics and Human Resource Management,
Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK
Keywords Employees, Multinationals, Employee surveys, Human resource management
Abstract This paper uses a matched workplace-employee data set to examine the extent to
which individuals' experiences of work and experiences of practices at work, as measured by
selected indicators of worker wellbeing, are explained by the nation state of the head office of the
workplace. Seven dimensions of worker wellbeing are identified and examined. The paper
establishes that employees have different experiences if employed in a workplace in which the head
office is located in France, Germany, Japan or the USA relative to the reference category of being
employed in a workplace which is UK-owned.
Context and aim
Although all organisations face a similar problem of managing labour so that
corporate objectives may be achieved successfully, how organisations manage
the human resources they employ varies widely. The goals and constraints
which inform the choice of labour management system are manifold, reflecting,
for example, management styles and the organisational and institutional
contexts and cultures within which management operates.
Within recent decades, the additional importance of the influence of national
culture on production and labour management policies has been a feature of
management and, in particular, employee relations literature in the UK. One
conclusion of Dunning's pioneering study is the propensity of US-owned
multinational organisations in the UK to adopt the same principles of
management found in their parent company (Dunning, 1958). There is now a
plethora of studies which seek to investigate the extent to which overseas-
owned multinationals attempt to follow this same strategy of transfer with
respect to either the production system or the labour management system or
both. Many of these studies focus, for example, on Japanese-owned
multinationals (Basu and Miroshnik, 1999; Elger and Smith, 1998; Hamilton et
al,, 1997; Mair, 1998; Morris et al., 2000).
In a more ambitious multinational comparative study, however, Child et al.
(1999, 2000) contrast the stereotypical management principles associated with
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The research associated with this paper was completed when the author was visiting the
research professor in the Department of Management Studies in the postgraduate School of
Social Sciences at Hiroshima University in Japan. He wishes to record his gratitude to Professor
Satoru Enomoto, then head of the department, and his colleagues, especially Professor Miguel
dos Santos Pinto, for their co-operation and hospitality throughout his stay. Constructive
comments from two anonymous referees on the original submission are also acknowledged.
Employee
Relations
25,2
150
five nation states, namelty the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and the USA. The
authors seek to examine the extent to which nation-specific management
principles are reflected in changes in policy and practice in acquired
subsidiaries subsequent to and consequent of take-over. Child et al. (1999,
p. 197) identify what they describe as a distinct nationality effect. In the context
of the management policies implemented, they find `` ...consistent tendencies
for acquirers of different nationalities to pursue somewhat different paths
towards the improvement of subsidiary performance''.
Another distinctive feature of the multinational literature is studies which
seek to examine the extent to which the corporate performance of overseas-
owned subsidiaries in the UK is different from that of indigenous-owned
companies, measured by such indicators as employment growth, investment,
labour productivity, profitability and turnover (Davies and Lyons, 1991;
Dunning, 1988; Girma et al., 2001; Griffith, 1999; Munday and Peel, 1997, 1999;
Oulton, 1998; Pain, 2000). In these studies, methodologically, overseas-owned
subsidiaries are proxied by either a single dummy independent variable or a
series thereof in a multivariate analysis which seeks to explain the selected
dependent variable. Superior performance on the part of overseas-owned
subsidiaries is established when the value of the coefficient on the dummy
variable/variables is positive, of consequence numerically and statistically
significant.
This paper is in the same genre as these comparative studies of the impact of
overseas ownership. Its focus is not on management policies per se, but on the
consequences of these policies, being the consequences of these policies for
individual worker wellbeing rather than their consequences for corporate
performance. Specifically, the paper examines the extent to which employee
differences in the experience of work and in the experience of practices at work,
manifest in selected indicators of individual worker wellbeing, may be
explained by the nationality of the ownership of the workplace at which he/she
is employed.
Dimensions of worker wellbeing
Measuring corporate performance outcomes is a problematic exercise.
Nevertheless, the convention is to make use of a range of principally financial
indicators, such as rate of return on capital employed, return on net worth,
earnings per share, etc., many of which have their origin in company-reporting
data. Measuring broader corporate outcomes, for example, those associated
with what Cully et al. (1999, p. 124) identify as ``workplace wellbeing'',is equally
problematical. However, in this instance there is much more uncertainty about
what to measure, not least because organisation/workplace information on
possible variables, such as absenteeism, voluntary quits, dismissals, industrial
injuries, etc., effectively often the aggregation of individual employee
behaviour, is not readily available (Guest, 2001).
The empirical focus of this paper is individual worker wellbeing. The
conceptual apparatus used to operationalise specific measures of individual
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