Premium
Accounting for Cross‐Country Differences in Employee Involvement Practices: Comparative Case Studies in Germany, Brazil and China
Author(s) -
Krzywdzinski Martin
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
british journal of industrial relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.665
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-8543
pISSN - 0007-1080
DOI - 10.1111/bjir.12230
Subject(s) - german , china , mainstream , competition (biology) , industrial relations , comparative research , sociology , political science , accounting , business , management , economics , social science , geography , ecology , archaeology , law , biology
Employee involvement is a contested concept in organizations. While the mainstream of the research debate has focused on measuring the strength of employee involvement (EI), this article emphasizes the existence of very different forms of EI. It draws on case studies of the German, Brazilian and Chinese plants of a German automobile manufacturer to analyse forms of EI and to investigate their societal determinants. The article reveals considerable differences in the design of employee involvement between the self‐organization model and the competition/social involvement model. It shows how industrial relations and cultural factors lead to these very different approaches.