"This article examines the effects of changes in the dynamics of the American national business system on industrial relations settlements in the UK subsidiaries of American multinational corporations (MNCs). While institutionalist analyses of country-of-origin and host-country effects must take account of changes in national business systems, such as the rise of the shareholder value ideology in the USA, empirical analysis reveals a pattern of pathway adjustment rather than radical change in employment relations at the UK subsidiary level. This suggests that although US MNCs are embedded within the American business system, their subsidiaries are not passive ciphers but autonomous sites through which influences must pass."

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