JAPANESE FIRMS AND EUROPEAN UNIONS

Is the performance of Japanese firms due to cultural traditions, and therefore not transferable from one country to another, or is it due to organisational innovations which can be transferred when firms expand abroad? The Japanese management practices most used in production units in Europe have to do with internal communication rather than with specific forms of work organisation or personnel management. These practices, however, have no deterministic impact on union influence or on the nature of collective work relations. The strength and the rights of national union organisations are as crucial as firms' strategies in accounting for the diversity observed in union presence in Japanese firms in Europe. Moreover, when analysing the way in which firms try to motivate workers in order to gain their cooperation, it is important to distinguish between units that are set up by Japanese firms and preexisting units that have been bought up, and also to consider the influence of the economic and social context at the time of implantation.