ABSTRACT
The organizational processes at enterprise level are shaped by the interaction between internal and external pressures. The major external pressures on enterprises are the collapse of markets associated with the disintegration of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and of the Soviet Union. The development of national models of labour relations is connected closely to and partially dependent upon political processes in the different countries and the economic strategies they have pursued. Dependence on the unstable political process meant that institutional development in labour relations was spasmodic rather than incremental. In Hungary the process of incremental change and development in the institutions of labour relations preceded political changes. The role of multinational companies in joint ventures and take-overs also provide another clear channel of transference in which Western styles and mechanisms of labour relations are transported to Eastern Europe and Russia.
