MULTINAZIONALI E LAVORATORI: UN CONFRONTO DI HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TRA ITALIA E BRASILE
Tesi di Dottorato
Data di Pubblicazione:
2011
Citazione:
MULTINAZIONALI E LAVORATORI: UN CONFRONTO DI HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TRA ITALIA E BRASILE / L. Frangi ; Tutor: Marino Regini ; coordinatore: Luisa Leonini. DIPARTIMENTO DI STUDI SOCIALI E POLITICI, 2011 Mar 23. 23. ciclo, Anno Accademico 2010. [10.13130/frangi-lorenzo_phd2011-03-23].
Abstract:
Multinational corporations and workers: a human resource management comparison
between Italy and Brazil
Abstract: In order to compare human resource management (HRM) practices between Italian and
Brazilian subsidiaries of three multinational corporations (MNCs) at the shop floor, the relevance of
the institutions for the economic actions is highlighted and the varieties of capitalism framework is
assumed as a theoretical model.
This analytical model is broadened through the inclusion of workers’ (i.e. non managerial
employees) protagonism, along with the firm's. Afterwards, the most influential institutions on the
shop floor HRM dynamics are selected and assessed. So, human resource management dynamics in
subsidiaries are analyzed as a social space where managers and workers interact individually and
collectively, according to resources and limits provided them by industrial relations and education
system institutions. The national institutional characteristics of trade unions, employer associations
and educational systems are traced with reference to sociological literature and through empirical
data collected by semi-structured interviews of local managers, trade unions union directors,
members of the works council (if it exists) and local representatives of employer associations.
These data are the most important empirical source of the research besides the analysis of same
(some?) documents (working contracts, national handbook of HRM of the MNCs).After the
theoretical and methodological research section, the subsequent section is dedicated to the analysis
of the most important characteristics of the selected institutional sub-systems.
Path dependency, structural features and organizational agency are the most important analytical
dimensions explored in trade unions and employer associations.
In Brazil the two institutions present similar features, mainly: still alive corporative origins and high
state dependence, low influence in the industrial relation field (due to the “hard law” environment)
and limited influence in the HRM dynamics at the shop floor. On the contrary, Italian industrial
relations institutions present autonomous and self-organized origins, high power in shaping the
labour dynamics through central as well as peripheral and firm bargaining, and they influence many
human resource management practices.
Moreover, the education system in Brazil is characterized by dualism between good structures voted
to social elites versus inadequate structures for the popular classes. As a result, human capital
resource is generally linked to this class. The Italian education system on the contrary is fluid,
allows social mobility and introduces growing rates of graduated students in the labour markets.
The final part of the research analyzes human resource management practices, specifically:
recruitment, training and compensation policies. In Brazil dualism is verified as a feature of all
practices, whereas dynamics of continuity among the different levels of the work system prevail in
Italian subsidiaries. Low influence of industrial relation institutions allows great freedom for local
mangers in Brazil, in opposition to the Italian context where trade unions and employer associations
maintain a higher level of influence. Institutional divergence of resources possessed by employees
at the entrance in the subsidiaries are deepened by HRM internal practices in Brazil, whereas in
Italian subsidiaries active trade unions limit this outcome.
The most relevant contributions of this research to the academic debate are to link the VoC
literature with the HRM one and to propose a innovative comparative analysis between two distant
institutional environments.
Tipologia IRIS:
Tesi di dottorato
Keywords:
Institutions ; Varieties of Capitalism ; Multinational Corporations ; Human Resource Management
Elenco autori:
L. Frangi
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