The sub-national level and the transfer of employment policies and practices in multinationals: Case study evidence from Belgium

The thesis has studied the role of employment policies at sub-national levels as possible explanations for different ways in which multinational companies produce and disseminate their employment policies and practices to their subsidiaries. The study has hereby focused on initiatives of regional governments, sectors andnbsp;webs of inter-firm relations like continuous vocational training or pension funds. It was hereby assumed that these sub-national levels influence the decision-making roles of headquarters and subsidiaries with regard to employment policies and practices. Based on the literature on the topic, different dimensionsof the transfer were distinguished: degree of control, centralisation, discretion and different configurations between subsidiaries and headquarters. Policies at sub-national level were not seen separately from social actors (employers, employees and their representatives) within multinationals. Rather, social actors were considered as "co-constructors' of sub-national levels. In doing so the thesis integrated the growing demand within studies on the transfer in MNCs to integrate within country variation and the role of social actors. For this, the thesis has focused on training and pay policies and practices in MNCs’ subsidiaries. Not only the subsidiaries’ specific policies were of interest, butalso policies at sub-national levels through which training and pay policies were shaped, like collective agreements or employment services provided by regional governments. To gain an insight into the various dimensions, 4 multinationals with several subsidiaries in Belgium were studied. Within those subsidiaries (HR) managers and trade union delegates were interviewed. Managers at higher organisational levels (regional or global headquarters) and sector representatives were also questioned. To get a comprehensive picture the study did also rely on secondary sources like collective agreements, policy documents, newspaper articles and company presentations. Based on the analysis of the interviews and secondary sources, the presence of more than one sub-national policyshows to be one of the crucial factors in explaining how these initiatives are formed and how the transfer of employment policies and practicestakes place. Moreover, the way in which sub-national initiatives meet the objective of social actors is explanatory. Specifically, the results have shown that social actors, unions, managers and employers' federations at the level of the subsidiary only engage in sub-national policies when multiple sources are available and if a competitive policy is the result. The sources to engage originate from the way the relationship between social actors and sub-national policies has evolved over time. As such, a continuous relationship between policy instruments and actors is observed. In addition, the presence of several policies at sub-national levels also influenced the transfer of training and pay policies, especially when these initiatives affect the competitive positionof the multinational. This resulted in more decision making or other competences for the subsidiary, because national subsidiaries ensure access to these initiatives. Based on the results, it is recommended that future research should integrate policies at sub-national levels and the roleof social actors both in academic and policy research. Not only will this give an insight into the extent to which different social actors can express their interests, it will make the relevance of a particular policy or domain clear as well. The first implication is important, as this will allow examination of whether bodies based on parity achieve their objectives in the context of social peace. The second implication will contribute to the understanding of the position of the national level, i.e. whether this level remains the most important policy level or not.status: publishe