The politics of selective and differential transfer of HRM practices in employee-owned MNCs: evidence from an emblematic European worker co-op

AbstractThis paper examines the cross-national transfer of HRM practices at Up Group, an emblematic French multinational worker co-op. Our findings reveal that stakeholder pressure to disseminate the co-op’s core HRM practices to its foreign subsidiaries triggered two key strategic responses from the HQ member-owners: transfer circumvention and ceremonial transfer. Therefore, our study provides new insights into the political and contested nature of practice transfer by elucidating how MNCs actively engage in the selective and differential transfer of some of their core HRM practices to protect the HQ actors’ interests and preserve their position of power vis-à-vis the subsidiaries. In addition, our fine-grained analysis of the ceremonially transferred practices contributes to the literature on practice variation during diffusion processes in MNCs. Finally, by examining the challenges of the cross-national management of people in multinational worker co-ops, an increasingly important global player, this study addresses critical management scholars’ calls to broaden the horizons of IHRM research beyond the hegemonic analysis of for-profit shareholder-owned MNCs.Keywords: International human resource managementmultinational companyorganizational politicspractice transferco-opsemployee-owned firms AcknowledgementsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the inputs of Carmen Marcuello, Imanol Basterretxea, Aingeru Ruiz, and participants at the 8th EMES Research Conference on Social Enterprise. The authors also express gratitude to members at Up Group for giving their time and support to this research. The first author thanks the invaluable support of Ara Bretos Ares, Ander Bretos Ares, Patricia Ares Bel, and Carmen Fernández Ortiz del Rio.Disclosure statementNo potential competing interest was reported by the authors.Data availability statementDue to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.Notes1 In Romania, elected employee representatives constitute the main channel of workplace representation, especially following the 2011 Social Dialogue Act, which has made it much more difficult to set up a representative union organization. The Labor Code does not stipulate how many employee representatives should be elected, stating only that this shall be mutually agreed with the employer, in relation to the total number of employees (Trif, Citation2016).2 The 249 French wage laborers chiefly came from two domestic joint-stock subsidiaries that were located within the same building as the co-op HQ3 As a point of comparison, the average profit-sharing bonus paid in French worker co-ops in 2011 was about US$ 5,800 (Fakhfakh et al., Citation2012).Additional informationFundingThis study was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades under grant F21140; Gobierno de Aragón under grant S28_20R; and Eusko Jaurlaritza under grant IT1711-22.