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Abstract
This paper examines human resource practices in Germany. It aims to find out whether there is a convergence towards a more unitarist US type of human resource management (HRM). The study is based on 25 case studies of German-, British- and US-owned banks and chemical firms operating in Germany. Although over the last decade many of the techniques associated with HRM have been introduced, most firms in the sample still largely comply with German labor market institutions. Pivotal HRM elements such as extensive training and employment security are favored by the German institutional environment. This exerts pressures to adopt a pluralist approach to HRM. Far from supporting convergence thinking, the German example supports a diversity theory.