Tussen Markt en Instituties: Is er beweegruimte voor lokale actoren bij herstructureringen in Europa?

In: Tijdschrift voor Sociologie, Band 33, Heft 2

Abstract

Under international market pressure, companies are increasingly forced to restructure their operations. The diverse outcomes of such restructurings have important employment implications, as illustrated by recent examples such as Opel, Carrefour and AB-InBev. Comparative research has mainly studied the influence of different industrial relations systems on restructuring processes. This institutional literature has, however, been criticised for being overly deterministic. This article aims to accommodate such criticism by not only considering the institutional context (market regime) but also the role of social actors (management and trade unions) and the market environment. The study is based on a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of 12 case studies in seven countries. The findings show that institutional structures do restrain social actors' behaviour but that actors also actively use these structures for pursuing their interests and shaping the content of restructuring.