Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This study was undertaken by a team based at Leicester Business School, De Montfort University, Warwick Business School and King's College, London. It aimed to investigate employment practices in multinational companies' operations in the United Kingdom, and explored how these are influenced by organisational characteristics. It was the first survey based on a representative sample of multinationals operating in UK. The sampled population included multinational companies with at least 500 employees in total. For UK-owned firms, eligibility was also based on a minimum of 100 employees in UK, and for overseas-owned firms, at least 100 employees in at least one other country. An initial brief telephone screening survey produced responses from 903 firms. For the main survey, data were collected through 302 structured face-to-face interviews with senior human resources (HR) managers responsible for the UK operations of multinational companies. Fieldwork was carried out by a survey research organisation, GfK NOP. Of the 302 responses, 258 were from operations of foreign-owned multinationals operating in UK, the remaining 44 from UK-owned multinationals. The survey findings have been used to test propositions concerning the association between a company's employment practices and organisational factors, such as corporate structure, international integration of operations, nationality of ownership, and sector. Further information about the study may be found on the Warwick Business School Employment Practices of Multinational Companies in Organisational Context project web page and the Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) Employment Practices of Multinational Companies (MNCs) in Organisational Context: a Large-scale Survey project web page. The Principal Investigators request that, rather than using the shortened form "Edwards, P. et al.", users list all five authors when citing the study, as follows: "Edwards, P., Edwards, T., Ferner, A., Marginson, P. and Tregaskis, O. Employment Practices of Multinational Companies in Organisational Context, 2005-2006 [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], November 2007. SN: 5748."

Main Topics:

The survey covered the strategy, structure and control mechanisms of companies, and the international structure and role of the human resource management function. It also examined four substantive areas of employment practice: performance management and reward systems; organisational learning; employee involvement and communication; and employee representation. The survey distinguished practice for three groups among the workforce: managers; the largest occupational group (LOG) among non-managerial employees; and (an innovation in the survey) a key group of employees critical to the firm’s core competence.

See documentation for further details of sampling.

Face-to-face interview

Telephone interview