Conclusion

Ireland's dependence on foreign direct investment (FDI) and its success in attracting inward FDI is well established. The study upon which this volume is based represents the largest and most representative empirical investigation of human resource management (HRM) practice in MNCs in Ireland to date. We investigated five HR areas, namely the HR function, pay and performance management, employee representation and consultation, employee communication and involvement, and training, development and organisational learning. This investigation focused on three groups of employees, (a) managers, (b) the largest occupational group (LOG) and (c) the key group. This latter category represents a major innovation in studies of this kind, concentrating on employee categories seen as particularly critical to firm performance. In this chapter we seek to summarily highlight what we see as the selected key issues to emerge from this research