ABSTRACT
The mixture of industrial relations from the country of origin and the host country of the direct investments predominates. There is a common denominator in Europe, which features quite substantial differences to the American or even East Asian basic understandings with regard to the arrangement of industrial relations. In the application of the conceptualities of the path dependencies we relate primarily to the real conditions of the respective parent enterprises and their Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) subsidiaries, which are naturally embedded in the respective national 'models' of industrial relations. The predominant characterization through the industrial relations in the parent enterprise/country of origin of the investments – unilateral path dependency. The corporate reasons for investment also have no dominant influence on the arrangement of industrial relations. In principle, the position and situation of the works councils in the German system of industrial relations allow an influence in the co-arrangement of industrial relations in the CEE subsidiary enterprises.
