scholarly journals Hierarchical Market Economies and Varieties of Capitalism in Latin America

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 553-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
BEN ROSS SCHNEIDER
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Business Groups ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Varieties Of Capitalism ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Market Economies ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Labour Market Regulation

AbstractThe extensive scholarship on ‘varieties of capitalism’ offers some conceptual and theoretical innovations that can be fruitfully employed to analyse the distinctive institutional foundations of capitalism in Latin America, or what could be called hierarchical market economies (HMEs). This perspective helps identify four core features of HMEs in Latin America that structure business access to essential inputs of capital, technology and labour: diversified business groups, multinational corporations (MNCs), low-skilled labour, and atomistic labour relations. Overall non-market, hierarchical relations in business groups and MNCs are central in organising capital and technology in Latin America, and are also pervasive in labour market regulation, union representation and employment relations. Important complementarities exist among these features, especially between MNCs and diversified business groups, as well as mutually reinforcing tendencies between these dominant corporate forms and general under-investment in skills and in well-mediated employment relations. These four features of HMEs, their common reliance on hierarchy, and the particular interactions among them add up to a distinct variety of capitalism, different from those identified in developed countries and other developing regions.

scholarly journals Labour standards application in the informal economy of Ghana: The patterns and pressures

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (196) ◽  
pp. 157-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Akorsu
Keyword(s):  
Informal Economy ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organisation ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Labour Market Regulation ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
Labour Legislation

In spite of the rapid growth and importance of informal employment in Ghana, few studies have investigated the extent of coverage of labour standards application, as a form of labour market regulation. This paper investigates the extent of labour standards application in shaping the employment relations and conditions within the informal economy. The study focuses on 30 manufacturing firms in Ghana?s informal economy. Data were obtained through interviews with 43 entrepreneurs and their workers, as well as with key informants from the social partners of industrial relations. The study shows that labour standards are generally not applied among informal economy operators due to factors such as a lack of coverage of the existing labour legislation, ineffective enforcement, ignorance, peculiarities of work organisation, and the dynamics of the apprenticeship system. It is therefore concluded that informal economy workers, who constitute the majority of the workforce in Ghana, lack social protection and must be targeted for intervention.

The Gendered Dimensions of Mining

2018 ◽  
pp. 20-44
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Gender Diversity ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Cultural Lag ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The costs and benefits of large mines to local communities and the relationship between mining multinational corporations (MNCs), government, and communities are subjects that have become important in developing and developed countries alike. To date, there has been a dearth of comprehensive study on roles and responsibilities of mining MNCs with respect to women and gender equality. Given that the relationship between mining MNCs and communities is changing rapidly—albeit unevenly and unsystematically—the need to develop understanding to better assess the gender impact of different approaches on this relationship and on the ability to maximise sustainable benefits from mining has become paramount. This chapter identifies the linkages between, on the one hand, work and labour-relations issues (e.g., long hours), reform of gender diversity policies and initiatives in mining, as well as the cultural lag between policy and practise; and, on the other hand, the impact of mining on women in mining towns/communities, a gendered impact assessment tool, and the relationship between mining and socioeconomic wellbeing.

scholarly journals Active Enactment and Virtuous Circles of Employment Relations: How Danish Unions Organised the Transnationalised Copenhagen Metro Construction Project

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 682-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Arnholtz ◽  
Bjarke Refslund
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Scale Construction ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Labour Market Regulation

Transnational workers on large-scale construction projects are often poorly included in national industrial relations systems, which results in employment relations becoming trapped in vicious circles of weak enforcement and precarious work. This article shows how Danish unions have, nonetheless, been successful in enacting existing institutions and organising the construction of the Copenhagen Metro City Ring, despite initially encountering a highly fragmented, transnational workforce and several subcontracting firms that actively sought to circumvent Danish labour-market regulation. This is explained by the union changing their organising and enforcement strategies, thereby utilising various power resources to create inclusive strategies towards transnational workers. This includes efforts to create shared objectives and identity across divergent groups of workers and actively seeking changes in the public owners’ attitude towards employment relations.

The Dynamics of the Regulation of Labour in Developing and Developed Countries since 1960

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nauro F. Campos ◽  
Jeffrey B. Nugent
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Market Reform ◽  
Employment Protection ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
Legal Origins ◽  
Development Level ◽  
Labour Market Regulation ◽  
Protection Legislation ◽  
Developing And Developed Countries

Labour market liberalization is certainly one of the most important structural reforms but it is also one of the least well-understood. In part, this is because empirical evidence is largely confined to OECD countries and to the post-1990 period. This chapter introduces a new index of labour market regulation rigidity covering 140 countries from 1960 to 2005. We find that trade liberalization and development level are more powerful explanations for the dynamics of labour market reform than the more conventional ‘legal origins’. We also find that the rigidity of employment protection legislation reduces income inequality but its effects on economic growth are ambiguous.

'Restrictive Business Practices', report by the UNCTAD Secretariat, April 1972.

1973 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-316
Author(s):  
G. M. Radhu
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
Less Developed Countries ◽  
International Firms ◽  
The World ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Financial Power ◽  
Administrative Structures

The report by the UNCTAD Secretariat, submitted to the third session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development held in Santiago (Chile) in April 1972, deals with the restrictive business practices of the multinational corporations with special reference to the export interests of the developing countries. Since the world war, there has been a tremendous growth in the size and activities of many international firms. They have grown from the national corporation to the multidivisional corporation and now to the multinational corporation. With each step they acquired greater financial power, better technology and know-how and more complex administrative structures. They have subsidiaries and branches all over the world. In the course of the sixties they became one of the dominant factors in determining the pattern of world trade. At the same time, their increasingly restrictive business practices, which tended to adversely affect world trade and the export interest of less developed countries, attracted the attention of the governments both in developed and less developed countries and serious concern was shown at the international level. It is against this background that the UNCTAD undertook the study on the question of restrictive business practices.

Australia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ville
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Business Model ◽  
Capital Markets ◽  
Business Groups ◽  
Business Group ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Australian Economy ◽  
Diversified Portfolio

Business groups have been limited in number and influence for most of Australia’s modern history. Several entrepreneurs managed a diversified portfolio of interests, and business families often cooperated with one another, but this rarely took the form of a business group. When the Australian economy diversified into manufacturing from its initial narrow resource base, multinational corporations formed a dominant presence. Governments built infrastructure but did not facilitate groups. Maturing capital markets negated the need for in-house treasuries. Business groups temporarily dominated the corporate landscape for several decades towards the end of the twentieth century, but their business model was flawed in relation to the Australian environment and most failed to survive the downturn of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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