Documents Vliegenthart, Arjan 3 results

"This article enlarges the existing literature on the varieties of capitalism by identifying a third basic variety that does not resemble the liberal market economy or coordinated market economy types. The dependent market economy (DME) type, as it is named by the authors, is characterized by the importance of foreign capital for the socioeconomic setup and is located in postsocialist Central Europe. Since the collapse of state socialism in the late 1980s, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak Republic have introduced a rather successful model of capitalism when compared with other postsocialist states. This article identifies the key elements of the DME model and discusses their interplay. DMEs have comparative advantages in the assembly and production of relatively complex and durable consumer goods. These comparative advantages are based on institutional complementarities between skilled, but cheap, labor; the transfer of technological innovations within transnational enterprises; and the provision of capital via foreign direct investment."

"This study explores the position of (organised) labour in the post-socialist corporate governance systems of Central Europe. The literature on post-socialist capitalism is rather united in its observation that organised labour is amongst the losers of the economic restructuring process. Yet, the explanations for this are different. Some scholars relate the weakened position of workers to domestic developments, whereas others have focused on the role of the European Union in the emergence of postsocialist industrial relations. A third group has related the weak position of labour to the position of Central Europe in the world economy.
This study sets out to weigh these different accounts by looking at specific developments in one area; the regulation of employees in the corporation's Supervisory Board, which constitutes one of the primary elements of labour involvement in any corporate governance system. It focuses on the Hungarian case and looks at regulatory developments with regard to the position of employees in Supervisory Boards since the early 1990s."