Defence is the Best Offence: Horizontal Disintegration and Institutional Completion in the German Coordinated Market Economy

GND
135941040
ORCID
0000-0003-1627-8405
Zugehörige Organisation
Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany
Hertwig, Markus;
GND
141784199
LSF
49443
Zugehörige Organisation
University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Kirsch, Johannes;
GND
121163725
Zugehörige Organisation
Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Wirth, Carsten

The article considers how (new) forms of horizontal disintegration, like onsite subcontracting, challenge and change the industrial relations institutions of the German coordinated market economy (CME). Focusing on firm-level co-determination practices, it analyses how works councils respond to strategies of onsite subcontracting and what effects their responses have for the employment system. Based on evidence from 12 case studies, it is argued that although onsite subcontracting might prompt institutional erosion, this does not pass uncontested. Rather, practices of network-oriented employee representation on the part of works councils might bring about an ‘institutional completion’, in this case, the institutionalisation of the network as an additional point of reference for employee representation. This may stabilise and even extend the scope of existing CME institutions through a process of ‘institutional upgrading’. In some areas of the economy, however, management and works council practices are more likely to exacerbate dualisation and social inequality.

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