Changing Perspectives of Employment Relations in the Globalized World: A Critical Review

The increasing liberalization of international trade has been accompanied by a significant expansion of the activities and complexity of multinational corporations (MNCs), which now combine multinational ownership with control over multinational value-adding activities. MNCs appeared to have adopted either an ethno-centric or a polycentric approach to manage employee relations globally. However since the globalization, a tendency to drive the global convergence of employee relations practices based on either the best practice, high performance value adding or the least control model have become more preferred options. It is found that the power shift is fast changing towards the MNCs. This paper attempts to review the relevant literature and highlight the changing paradigm of employee relations approaches by MNCs, their mutual relationship with trade unions etc.