The 'culture-free' organization? Industrial relations in European authorities

How far can organization-specific industrial relations coexist with national industrial relations systems? This article adopts a novel perspective on this question by looking at organizations which are outside any national framework of industrial relations. Two case studies of employment conditions, labour relations and trade union structures in European authorities reveal industrial relations systems independent of those of the country in which they are based, and primarily dependent on organization-specific factors such as the institutions regulating employment conditions in the organization.