The Europe Institute public seminar 
(Seminars)
18 January 2012
12.30pm - 2pm
Venue: Level 3, Owen G Glenn building
Host: Antje Fiedler (PhD Candidate, Business School, The University of Auckland)
Cost: Free
Contact info: RSVP to Dinah Towle
Contact email: d.towle@auckland.ac.nz
Institutional change at supranational, European Union level affects national and firm level institutions in various ways.
This article traces effects of liberalisation measures in the airport industry enacted in two airport firms in Germany.
This study, based on qualitative empirical research, found that EU liberalisation facilitated company creation of subsidiaries (subsidiarisation) and elevated shareholder interest in corporate governance. These factors affected institutional practices and cultural norms within the German insustrial context that in turn influenced significant alterations in employment and workplace relations.
Considerable disruption of the German social partnership model of corporate governance and industrial relations was observed.
However in addition to patterns of convergence towards neoliberal practices and outcomes frequently observed in Anglo-Saxon systems, the study found some elements of effective retention of cultural institutional resources of the German model. Both 'path departure' and social embeddedness appear to coexist in a complex relationahip.
