Citation: Triantafillidou, E.; Koutroukis, T. Human Resource Management, Employee Participation and European Works Councils: The Case of Pharmaceutical Industry in Greece. Societies 2022, 12, 167. https://doi.org/10.3390/ soc12060167 Academic Editors: Gregor Wolbring and Sandro Serpa Received: 27 June 2022 Accepted: 16 November 2022 Published: 21 November 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). societies Article Human Resource Management, Employee Participation and European Works Councils: The Case of Pharmaceutical Industry in Greece Eleni Triantafillidou * and Theodore Koutroukis Department of Economics, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece * Correspondence: eltriant@econ.duth.gr Abstract: Employee participation is a broad notion that encompasses sets of practices that enable employees to participate in the decision-making process on issues affecting them leading to a com- mitted workforce. According to the 2009/38/EC Directive, a European Workers’ Council (EWC) is established in all undertakings and all community-scale groups of undertakings for the purpose of informing and consulting employees. This study investigates the impact of employee participation on employees and organizations and more specifically the potential benefits and the added value of participation for employees and organizations, the potential costs and threats of employee partici- pation and the added value of EWCs in multinational subsidiaries in the pharmaceutical industry in Greece. The data gathering was carried out through in-depth semi-structured interviews with management, HR executives, trade union representatives and EWC representatives using a semi- structured questionnaire based on the state-of-the-art literature review. Organizations participating in the study are subsidiaries of multinational companies with an active European Works Council in the pharmaceutical industry in Greece. Findings suggest that there are potential benefits of employee participation practices for the employees and added value for the pharmaceutical companies and provide a useful perspective for managers and researchers in the field of labor relations and human resource management. Keywords: employee participation; labor relations; human resource management; European Works Councils; pharmaceutical industry; multinationals 1. Introduction Although employee relations are related to Human Resources Management (HRM), the study of employee relations within multinational corporations has not been explored as much as HRM in multinational corporations. Frequently asked questions in the interna- tional literature are whether multinationals try and follow the same policies and practices for all their operations regardless of location, essentially exporting the successful parent country approach [1]. This strategy allows for a degree of strategic integration and coher- ence between the various units. The next question is whether multinational companies follow policies and practices that are more harmonized and ensure adaptability to the requirements of local regimes. These questions and these issues have occupied many scien- tists for years. Extensive research has been carried out to determine the importance of the influences of the host country and the mother country in the management of employment relationships in the subsidiaries [1]. Multinational companies are a source of innovation in the dissemination of new HRM policies and employee relations management practices. Human resource management and employee relations as a function of HRM are vital and challenging issues in the pharmaceutical industry. There are a few recent studies analyzing the role of HRM in the pharmaceutical firms [2,3]. Societies 2022, 12, 167. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12060167 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/societies