5 Cross-National Differences in Human
Resources and Organization
Arndt Sorge1 Introduction 117
2 An organization theory foundation of cross-national comparison 118
3 An institutionalist interpretation of organizational structures and HRM 123
4 Societal analysis beyond the institutionalism–culturalism split 131
5 Globalization, European integration and institutional differentiation 136
6 Discussion questions 138
7 Further reading 138
References 139
1 INTRODUCTION
Cross-national comparative research on organization and human resources
usually follows one of two major approaches: institutionalist or culturalist. In
Section 2 we explain in which way comparative research differs between these
two approaches. At the same time, we point out that these two different
strands are complementary rather than opposed. In the third section we
describe and explain differences between organization and human resource
structures in different countries, with an emphasis on more institutionalist
comparisons. The more culturalist comparisons are left for the next chapter.
The institutionalist treatment starts with differences observed within enter-
prises before moving over to wider, more ‘macro’ differences characterizing