Similar, but still different: how US multinational companies in Germany and Switzerland use host‐country training and skill practices

Abstract

We examine in how far US subsidiaries in Germany and Switzerland display characteristics of a strategic fit with their host country and mostly find support for our predictions. Subsequently we determine each subsidiary's host-country fit and test for within country differences in using local training and skill practices. We find the extent of continuing vocational education and training and the extent to which training on the job is important to vary with host-country fit in Germany, while in Switzerland, as predicted, we find no such relations.

Organizational and comparative institutionalism in internationalHRM: Toward an integrative research agenda

“…Farndale, Brewster, Ligthart, and Poutsma (2017) (Edwards & Ferner, 2002;Ferner, Bélanger, Tregaskis, Morley, & Quintanilla, 2013). However, Kluike and Pull (2013)…”

“…Other work highlights how US MNEs are distinct from their counterparts from a range of other institutional settings in their much greater emphasis on centralized decision making, including those related to HRM practices (Edwards & Ferner, 2002; Ferner, Bélanger, Tregaskis, Morley, & Quintanilla, 2013). However, Kluike and Pull (2013) find that strong training institutions in Germany molded the HRM practices of German subsidiaries of US MNEs. Interestingly, those effects were much less pronounced in the case of Swiss subsidiaries of US MNEs.…”

Using expatriates for adapting subsidiaries' employment modes to different market economies: a comparative analysis of US subsidiaries in Germany, the UK and Switzerland

“…Likewise, the VoC approach remains silent on questions of the crossborder transfer of business practices and the clashes of institutional logics that may occur between firms from different countries. Recent empirical results, however, indicate that foreign subsidiaries behave differently from domestic firms (Edwards et al, 2010, Kluike and Pull, 2013, Marginson et al, 1995. By failing to distinguish between domestic and foreign firms, the VoC approach implies that subsidiaries of MNCs will adapt only those employment modes that are characteristic of their host market economy.…”

Human resource management and radical innovation: a fuzzy-set QCA of US multinationals in Germany, Switzerland, and the UK

“…Though it has been discussed as a CME similar to Germany, it is in fact a hybrid economy with a labor market that allows for numerical flexibility and a vocational training system similar to Germany (Kluike andPull 2013, Teuber 2012). Given these institutions, subsidiaries in Switzerland may follow either the German or the British pattern.…”