Conceptual approaches to the transfer of employment practices in multinational companies: an integrated approach Tony Edwards, King’s College London Trevor Colling, Warwick University Anthony Ferner, Leicester Business School, De Montfort University Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 17, no 3, 2007, pages 201–217 This article examines the transfer of employment practices across borders within multinational companies. We contrast market-based, cross-national comparative and micro-political perspectives on this issue and argue for an integrated approach that focuses on interrelationships between markets and institutions on the one hand and the material interests of actors on the other. We develop this argument using data from a multi-level case study of a multinational in the US and Britain. Contact: Dr Tony Edwards, Department of Management, King’s College, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, UK. Email: tony.edwards@kcl.ac.uk INTRODUCTION A key feature of multinational companies (MNCs) as employers is their ability to transfer HR practices across borders. The extent and impact of such transfer has the potential to influence the performance of MNCs, while it can also lead to change in national host systems as novel practices become established. This issue has been addressed through a number of conceptual perspectives. One perspective suggests that transfer is driven by whether or not managers perceive a clear competitive advantage from engaging in it; a second perspective sees transfer as conditioned by cross-national variations in business systems; and a third perspective is that transfer is shaped by the interests of various groups of actors within MNCs and by struggles between these groups. In this article, we explore the contribution of each of these approaches. While it is evident that some research on this issue draws on more than one, with some exceptions (e.g. Geppert et al., 2003; Morgan et al., 2003), any eclecticism is almost always implicit: the perspectives have tended not to engage with one another. We argue for an integrated understanding of why transfer occurs, drawing on the insights of each of the market-based, cross-national comparative and power-based approaches, and show the interdependence of market and institutional configurations with intra-firm political processes. Accordingly, we develop a ‘political economy’ approach, illustrating this with findings from a detailed case study of HR policies in an American MNC. The following section summarises existing conceptual approaches to transfer and the third section describes the data. The principal section is the fourth, where data on four HR issues are used to demonstrate the benefits of an integrated approach. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 17 NO 3, 2007 201 © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.