Documents Walgenbach, Peter 3 results

"Following research on transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and having been motivated by arguments pertaining to the business systems approach, the authors propose that the existence of a communist heritage decreases the likelihood that employees will be consulted during organizational change processes. Results based on 23,876 firms across 27 of the European Union (EU-27) countries support this proposition. Moreover, the likelihood of direct consultation decreases with the existence of formal employee representation and an increasing share of foreign ownership in firms located in CEE countries. The authors discuss these findings in the context of organizational democracy research and the recent literature on transition economies and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of participative decision-making processes in organizations."

"We analyze the adoption of the Assessment Center (AC), one of the most complex human resource management techniques, in 161 British, French, German, Italian and US multinational firms both at the headquarters and in their Italian subsidiaries. Combining both quantitative analysis and qualitative accounts, we investigate how different and partially contradictory institutional influences stemming from national business systems and professions, global corporate networks and professions, and different technical-economic conditions affect the adoption of the AC. Our study shows that AC-diffusion is similar at headquarters level in all national contexts, testifying to the paramount importance of transnational institutions of Anglo-American origin for MNCs of any nationality, despite great local variation in the degree of institutionalization of the AC, which ranges from fully-fledged support in culture and the professions as, for example, in Germany, the UK and the USA, to weak or negative backing as in France and Italy. However, the study also reveals how different characteristics of the corporate field of firms with headquarters in different countries, as well as organizational size and labor market conditions, still explain adoption of the AC in their subsidiaries in Italy. "