This chapter compares the systems for corporate governance of Germany and the UK as systems typical of liberal and coordinated market economies with attention to the relationship between markets for corporate governance and corporate finance and managerial structure. It traces recent changes in both systems concluding that each remains distinctive. It explores the impact of these differences on recent firm strategies in the sectors of financial services and the chemicals and pharmaceutical industry.

In comparative political economy it has become commonplace to distinguish between two types of corporate governance systems. In shareholder systems, influence over company management is concentrated with institutional investors holding small percentages of companies' shares. In stakeholder systems, influence is shared between large shareholders, employees, the community and suppliers and customers. This paper contributes to the literature addressing recent changes in the German variant of the stakeholder system by proposing a few new concepts. On the level of institutions, it is argued that the stakeholder system is not being replaced by a shareholder system in Germany. Rather, an augmented stakeholder system is emerging through the inclusion of institutional investors in the old stakeholder coalition of interests. On the level of practice, it is argued that negotiated shareholder value is being adopted in Germany. This German variant of shareholder value is distinct from Anglo-American practice because major changes implementing shareholder value must be negotiated within the augmented stakeholder coalition. As a result, performance incentives for employees tend to be less strong than is the case in the USA and UK.

Throughout the 20th century, banks have dominated Germany's financial system and also played a key role in corporate governance. Recently, however, a number of efforts have been made to increase the role of markets within this bank-based financial system, including regulatory innovations and a reform of the pension system. This article finds that, despite these changes, there are a surprising number of continuities in the structure of the financial system. The German financial system can therefore still be characterised as bank-based. Furthermore, banks have only partially withdrawn from the stakeholder system of corporate governance, and to some extent been replaced by insurance companies. An explanation for these continuities is advanced which emphasises stability in household investment behaviour and in patterns of company sector demand for finance. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.

We examine the relationship between board-level codetermination and corporate social responsibility in German companies, engaging with two distinct literatures. Most quantitative studies of codetermination focus on its economic impact, with little attention to other outcomes. Studies of corporate social responsibility rarely consider the role of worker representatives. Our new measure of the strength of codetermination, the Mitbestimmungsindex (MB-ix), shows a positive relationship with ‘substantive’ policies such as the adoption of targets for reducing pollution, but not with ‘symbolic’ policies, such as membership of the UN Global Compact. We therefore shed new light on the role of codetermination and provide a more differentiated view of the spread of what has been termed ‘explicit’ corporate social responsibility in Germany.

Manuscript Type: Empirical\ud \ud Research Question/Issue: This article considers the consequences for employment, work organization, and industrial relations when companies are acquired by private equity, hedge funds, or sovereign wealth funds. It also assesses the role of national labor regulation in moderating labor outcomes.\ud \ud Research Findings/Insights: The article draws on three case studies – a Spanish supermarket chain, a German engineering company, and a ports and logistics group hitherto based in the UK. Employment reductions are found in each case, though to varying extents. There are few changes in work organization but some developments in employee voice and representation. National systems of labor regulation do not impact substantially on employment reductions but they do affect the extent to which worker representatives receive information after, though not during, the acquisition.\ud \ud Theoretical/Academic Implications: Contrary to extant theory, the extent of national employment regulation does not appear to be an impediment to restructuring by investment funds. The differential effect of the three funds suggests that the extent of ownership is not decisive in explaining the level of activism or its impacts on labor. Instead, the objectives and time frames of funds appear to be more important.\ud \ud Practitioner/Policy Implications: The implication of the findings is that greater disclosure and regulation of new investment funds is more likely to enhance employee protection than further labor regulation. Broadly, this has been the main thrust of recent policy within European Union institutions