This paper investigates the impact of multinational corporations on employment This paper through comparative case studies of three plants owned by the global multinational corporation, Asea Brown Boveri (ABB). A growing trend towards convergence in employment relations practices is revealed. It is argued that this is not the result of some inevitable social law, but rather a contingency that is intimately linked to corporate management strategy, on tbe one hand, and developments in the product markets, production processes and national institutional structures of the three plants, on the other: By exploring these links, the paper seeks to advance understanding of the conditions under which global companies like ABB might deliver one of the oft- assumed features of globalisation.
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