management and labor) proved to be too deeply rooted in acquired plants to justify
or allow for the diVusion of preferred HR strategies that emphasized extensive
training in problem-solving, active suggestion programs, and oV-line small group
activities such as quality control circles. Similarly, Brewster and Tregaskis ( 2003 )
found in their cross-sectional study of MNCs with operations in several European
countries that the institutional and cultural antecedents of host locations eVectively
blocked foreign MNCs from diVusing contingent employment practices (e.g. the
hiring of part-time, temporary, andWxed-term contract employees) beyond what
was customary in given locales.
In between these extremes on the continuum, MNCs have simply maintained
some highly embedded policies and practices in their foreign locales while trans-
ferring to them other policies core to the parent’s preferred HR strategies. Policies
diVused, however, are often modiWed in practice to varying degrees to accommo-
date local workplace cultures and institutional arrangements. For example, in their
study of a UK–US-owned pharmaceutical MNC, Edwards et al. ( 2005 ) describe
how the corporate headquarters’ eVorts to diVuse preferred HRM practices (vari-
able pay tied to job grading and performance) were met with local resistance. They
found, however, that locales were marked by suYcient degrees of ‘malleability,’
which allowed the MNC to structure alternative practices largely in line with its
preferred policies. In a similar vein, Gamble ( 2003 ) found that even in light of
the cultural distance between Chinese and UK workplaces, the eVorts of a British-
owned retailWrm to transfer preferred HRM practices to China were largely
successful, but nonetheless, shaped by ‘subtle and ineluctable processes of trans-
formation.’ A study of US-owned AT&T’s eVort to diVuse a universal, corporate-
wide cultural change program in its Scottish NCR subsidiary demonstrates,
furthermore, how critical it is that corporate executives create suYcient incentives
and provide convincing justiWcation for change in order to gain the support of
local managers and employees (Martin et al. 2003 ).
It is apparent, furthermore, that unions have played central roles in resisting the
diVusion of preferred HRM policies and practices abroad. In the Florida and
Kenney ( 1991 ) study of automobile manufacturing, US unions were unwilling to
accept the individualized pay systems based on merit and seniority sought by
Japanese-owned MNCs. In the Kenney and Tanaka ( 2003 ) study of television
assembly plants, US unions played a role in blocking the transfer of the preferred
Japanese HRM system. In their study of German subsidiaries of US- and UK-
owned MNCs, Schmitt and Sadowski ( 2003 ) found that subsidiaries were more
likely to retain existing collective bargaining and co-determination practices than
they were to retain existing HRM practices the parents sought to change. One can
draw from these and other analyses that unions by the nature of their function as
representatives of aVected employees and by the countervailing power they enjoy
are more inclined and/or better able to resist management initiatives at transform-
ing workplaces than are unrepresented foreign locations.
global human resource strategy 495