Dionne Pohler, Johnson Shoyama School of Public Policy, U of S

Dionne Pohler will present a seminar at 4:00 pm.

Title: "Multinationals and compliance with regulatory employment practices: A theoretical and empirical assessment using administrative data"

Location: Arts 807

Abstract: We adopt a multidisciplinary approach to investigate how MNCs behave in their host countries using theoretical perspectives derived from both organization and management theory (e.g., new institutional theory) and comparative political economy (e.g., varieties of capitalism). We also develop a new theoretical perspective of MNC behavior drawing on notions of countervailing power in institutional economics and industrial relations. We examine compliance with regulatory and quasi-regulatory employment practices using unique firm-level data and a natural experiment inspired research design where we compare the behavior of foreign MNCs to Canadian MNCs in Canada. Using mass layoffs spanning two decades, the results show that foreign MNCs are less likely to comply with employment regulations. However, there is strong heterogeneity in this effect via country of origin: MNCs from the USA, UK/Ireland, and Asia are less likely to comply, while MNCs from continental Europe are more likely to comply. Finally, supporting a countervailing power perspective, foreign MNC compliance with required notice relative to domestic MNCs is higher and less variable within unionized firms relative to non-unionized firms.

This seminar is part of the Department of Economics Seminar Series.

Everyone is welcome to attend.