Europeanization Meets Organized Capitalism

This chapter discusses European Capitalism. Organized Western European varieties of capitalism are presumably coming under pressure, not only because their statist and neocorporatist institutional character is allegedly ill-suited to cope with the twin pressures of Europeanization and globalization, unlike the presumably more competitive and efficient, but certainly leaner and meaner liberal Anglo-American model. Therefore, an introduction to the neocorporatist and statist systems of political economy and industrial relations is provided. The posting of workers concerned chiefly the construction sector. The importance and relevance of this component of the service sector is evident from its position as being the largest employer in the private sector across Europe. Its corporate governance structures and structural composition are highly representative of the private sector more generally. Traditionally, they were more likely to cooperate and form project-specific working relationships; however, with the partial exception of Austria, the trend in the construction sector is moving towards French-style all-inclusive service providers, which leads to the employment of subcontracting companies, and commonly even several layers or chains of subcontractors.