Based on a series of field surveys conducted among a cross-section of eight French MNCs located in three Central and Eastern European countries (Hungary, Slovakia, Romania) and present in three sectors of activity (energy, car industry, food-processing), the present paper offers some evidence for understanding the impact of transnationalisation of production on the recomposition of Industrial Relations rules and practices. By exploring the new layout of Human Resources policies in MNCs, it stresses the growing incursion of those policies in the very field of industrial relations, and consequently the affirmation of a new paradigm of social dialogue we propose to call "managerial social dialogue". By focusing on the strategies of Labor Unions at national and EU levels, it also provides some indications of obstacles to the consolidation of the European Social Model whose institutional process remains largely incomplete. Finally, our principal results offer support to some political and theoretical considerations that are linked to the very current processes of globalisation.
JEL: F23; J51; J53; M14; M54