More recent evidence indicates that the mode of operation of EWCs may
well be influenced more by the international nature of the company concerned
than by features of the particular country in which a given company is head-
quartered. In a study of EWCs in eight UK- and US-based MNCs (Hoffmann
et al., 2001; Marginson et al., 2001), the organization and networking activity of
the employee side and, in turn, the capacity of the employee side to influence
the outcome of management decisions on transnational business matters, were
found to be fundamentally shaped by the nature of companies’ business
operations and the degree to which they were internationalized. Three consider-
ations are important. First is the extent to which business operations are spread
across several countries or concentrated in one country, and therefore whether
the EWC is numerically dominated by representatives from a single country.
(Indeed, the only instance where the smaller executive committee established
by most EWCs was numerically dominated by representatives from the home
country, was the situation where the operations where overwhelmingly con-
centrated in the UK.) The second consideration is the business portfolio of the
company, and whether this extends across a range of business activities or is
focused on a single business. Where there are multiple business activities,
which may be differentially spread across countries, similarities of interest
amongst employee representatives are more difficult to establish – even
amongst representatives from the same country. Where there is a single busi-
ness focus, such similarities of interest are more easily established amongst
employee representatives from different countries. This second consideration is
intensified or attenuated by the third, which is integration of production and
other activities across borders. With integrated production across national
borders, employee interests are not only similar but become directly interdepen-
dent. Accordingly, employee-side organization and networking activity was
found to be strongest, and the impact of the EWC on management decision-
making greatest, in single business companies whose operations are spread
across countries and where production and other activities are integrated
across European borders. Conversely, such employee-side organization and
networking activity had the least impact, with no evidence of EWC impact on
management decision-making, in multi-business companies whose operations
tended to be concentrated in one country and/or where there was little or no
cross-border integration of production. In a further study of 15 EWCs in com-
panies based in four European countries, Lecher et al. (2001: 85–6) also point
to the importance of structural considerations relating to the degree of inter-
nationalization of business operations and business focus in distinguishing
symbolic from more active EWCs.
The mode of operation of the EWCs in the UK- and US-based MNCs was
further shaped by a range of other factors which, with one exception, are also
company- rather than country-specific. Management structure and manage-
ment policy are both important. How far EWCs are ‘active’ rather than ‘sym-
bolic’ was facilitated or constrained by whether a central management
474 International Human Resource Management