Coordination, employment flexibility, and industrial relations in Western European multinationals: evidence from Poland. International Journal of Human Resource Management (2006), Vol. 17, No. 8, pp. 1379–1395.

Despite the significant investment of multinational companies (MNCs) in Central and Eastern Europe, we have limited information about the diffusion of employment practices in this region. This paper aims to fill this gap by conceptualizing and exploring coordination, employment flexibility and industrial relations in a Polish factory of a Western European industrial company. We argue that the MNCs’ corporate intention to utilize local conditions and an underdeveloped international coordination of trade unions within MNCs are the main factors explaining the local embeddedness of factory-level employment practices and industrial relations.