Low Road Convergence? The significance of sectoral factors in understanding MNC cross-border behaviour: the case of the Spanish and German quick food service sectors

This article examines the labour relations practices of multinational corporations (Macs) in the German and Spanish quick-food service sectors. The demand for greater profitability and lower costs is leading to a greater standardization of work methods across a widening range of food service operators, resulting in the gradual elimination of more expensive, skilled and experienced workers, and an increasingly non-union approach in employee relations practices. The outcome involves increasing standardization, union exclusion, low trust, low skills, and low pay. These sectoral characteristics appear to outweigh both country-of-origin and host-country effects. The findings therefore confirm continuing variation within national industrial relations systems and the importance of sectoral characteristics and organizational contingencies in understanding MNC cross-border behaviour.