Industrial Hubs and the Industrial Labour Force in Africa and Asia

2020 ◽  
pp. 379-400
Author(s):  
Carlos Oya ◽  
Florian Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
Labour Force ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Global Production Networks ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sectoral Composition ◽  
Opening Up

Industrial hubs can take a number of institutional forms and vary greatly in size, sectoral composition, and degree of internal coordination. What all such hubs have in common, though, is that they concentrate industrial workers in great numbers and therefore play a key role in opening up new possibilities for organizing and negotiating industrial relations. In this chapter we examine the role of industrial hubs for light manufacturing in creating and maintaining an industrial labour force in Africa and Asia. We critically review theories for understanding industrial hubs as spaces of both job creation and labour control, and show how outcomes are in part determined by incorporation into global production networks. Drawing on a wide range of empirical evidence, we provide an overview of wages and working conditions in industrial hubs in Africa and Asia, and examine the causes and consequences of gendered labour dynamics in these spaces.

scholarly journals Employment relations in global production networks: Initiating transfer of practices via union involvement

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 599-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Fichter ◽  
Markus Helfen ◽  
Jörg Sydow
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Global Production Networks ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Interesting Contribution ◽  
Practice Transfer ◽  
External Actors ◽  
Model Of Practice

International Framework Agreements (IFAs) represent a still small but growing and particularly interesting contribution to the global regulation of employment relations. IFAs enable global union federations (GUFs) to become actively involved in co-designing employment relations within transnational corporations (TNCs) and their global production networks. Based upon theoretical insights into the challenges of transferring practices in and across organizations, we present and discuss a model of practice transfer for global production networks based on empirical data from a content analysis of IFAs and from interviews with representatives of TNCs, GUFs, and other experts. Our study contributes to an organizational theory of practice transfer. But more importantly, it aims at a better integration of IHRM and international industrial relations by looking more closely at the particular role of GUFs as external actors.

scholarly journals Using chemical biology to assess and modulate mitochondria: progress and challenges

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 20160151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Logan ◽  
Michael P. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Mitochondrial Function ◽  
Chemical Biology ◽  
Biomedical Sciences ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Future Challenges ◽  
The Many ◽  
Opening Up

Our understanding of the role of mitochondria in biomedical sciences has expanded considerably over the past decade. In addition to their well-known metabolic roles, mitochondrial are also central to signalling for various processes through the generation of signals such as ROS and metabolites that affect cellular homeostasis, as well as other processes such as cell death and inflammation. Thus, mitochondrial function and dysfunction are central to the health and fate of the cell. Consequently, there is considerable interest in better understanding and assessing the many roles of mitochondria. Furthermore, there is also a growing realization that mitochondrial are a promising drug target in a wide range of pathologies. The application of interdisciplinary approaches at the interface between chemistry and biology are opening up new opportunities to understand mitochondrial function and in assessing the role of the organelle in biology. This work and the experience thus gained are leading to the development of new classes of therapies. Here, we overview the progress that has been made to date on exploring the chemical biology of the organelle and then focus on future challenges and opportunities that face this rapidly developing field.

Forging connections: The role of ‘boundary spanners’ in globalising clusters and shaping cluster evolution

2021 ◽  
pp. 030913252110387
Author(s):  
Di Wu
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Spanning ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Boundary Spanners ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Global Production Networks ◽  
Boundary Spanner ◽  
Evolutionary Economic ◽  
Cluster Evolution ◽  
Global Connections

Synthesising the endogenous-centred evolutionary economic geography perspective, and the globally oriented ‘global pipelines’ and global production networks frameworks, this article develops the ‘boundary spanner’ concept to propose a theoretical framework to illustrate how resourceful actors, as boundary spanners, globalise clusters and in turn drive cluster evolution. This framework comprises four interrelated cluster boundary-spanning functions, namely, discursive construction, innovation promotion, production coordination and market reach. This article aims to advance the cluster literature by unpacking how clusters’ global connections are constructed and maintained, conceptualising the multidimensional role of the agency of boundary spanners and demonstrating boundary spanners’ contributions to cluster evolution.

Ever-Widening Ripples: The Impact of Specialist Industrial Tribunals on Management Practice

1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Thornthwaite
Keyword(s):  
Management Practice ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Employment Decisions ◽  
Public Role ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

While conciliation and arbitration tribunals have been at the forefront of Austral ian research on industrial relations institutions, numerous specialist tribunals enforcing individual workers' rights in employment have been virtually hidden from view. This paper examines the role of two such tribunals in New South Wales, the Government and Related Employees' Appeal Tribunal and the Equal Opportu nity Tribunal. It argues that although their most direct and public role is to resolve individuals' grievances, equally significant is the contribution of these agencies to the detailed regulation of employment relations and hence the increasing sophisti cation of labour management in public sector organizations since the late 1970s, and the institutionalization of management prerogatives and conflicts over an increasingly wide range of employment decisions.

scholarly journals Crossvergence of socially (ir)responsible employment practices in supplier firms

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britta Holzberg
Keyword(s):  
Decent Work ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Global Production Networks ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Employment Practices ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Local Pressures ◽  
Global And Local

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the notion of crossvergence from international human resource management (IHRM) as a conceptual lens for understanding and analyzing the formation of socially (ir)responsible employment practices in supplier firms in global production networks (GPNs). The crossvergence perspective can particularly contribute to understanding how the agency of suppliers is influenced by the interaction of global–local dynamics. Design/methodology/approach The paper illustrates how the formation of socially (ir)responsible employment practices can be understood as a process of crossvergence. Subsequently, it reviews and structures insights from GPN and IHRM literature to detail the process. Findings The paper underscores the complicated role of suppliers in ensuring decent work in GPNs. Suppliers face a multitude of global and local interacting, and partially conflicting, demands. They process these demands as active agents and need to develop suitable employment practices in response. Originality/value The paper supports the nascent discourse on supplier agency in forming socially responsible employment practices. It connects different streams of literature to illuminate the perspective of suppliers, introduces IHRM insights to the debate and offers conceptual guidance for analyzing interacting global and local pressures on suppliers.

Unions and corporate social responsibility in a liberal market context: The case of Ford’s shutdown in Australia

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 713-734
Author(s):  
Darryn Snell ◽  
Victor Gekara
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Corporate Social

Within many coordinated market economies, labour unions have demonstrated to be key actors in shaping corporate social responsibility. Researchers have, however, paid surprisingly little attention to the role of unions in shaping corporate social responsibility strategies and responses in liberal market contexts. This article extends the emerging research on unions and corporate social responsibility through a case study which investigates union influences over corporate social responsibility within the liberal market context of Australia. We conceptualise the role of unions in corporate social responsibility in this context through an industrial relations lens with particular reference to collective bargaining. Drawing on qualitative data, the case study examines the Ford Motor Company’s recent closure of its Australian assembly operations which was hailed by a wide range of stakeholders as an exemplar of ‘best practice’ in their assistance of displaced workers. We conclude that, while highly socially responsible, Ford’s actions were far from voluntary but influenced by a combination of union influence and a ‘subsidised’ corporate social responsibility, where the state, unable and/or powerless to legislate good corporate social behaviour, chose to financially underwrite its cost to the firm. The study represents one of the first studies to demonstrate how unions shape corporate social responsibility strategies of firms in liberal market contexts and how ‘subsidised’ corporate social responsibility becomes an alternative political solution within such a context.

Global cities and the geographical transfer of value

Urban Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christof Parnreiter
Keyword(s):  
Uneven Development ◽  
Global Cities ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Global Production Networks ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Producer Service ◽  
Global Commodity Chains ◽  
Central Argument

The central argument of this article is that global cities are, due to their clustering of producer service firms, critical governance nodes in global production networks. More in particular, the article scrutinises the role of producer service firms in uneven development and, especially, in the geographical transfer of value (Hadjimichalis, 1984). Because the direct as well as the indirect mechanisms through which value is transferred geographically require the intervention of producer service firms, global cities can be theorised as governance nodes for centripetal wealth transfers along global commodity chains. Moreover, and in the context of the persisting criticism that the global city concept has a bias towards Northern/Western cities, the article argues that the claim that global cities are critical places for the organisation of uneven development also holds for cities beyond ‘the usual suspects’. Referring to cases of how producer service firms in Hamburg and Mexico City erect entry barriers to protect their clients from competition and of how they shape labour relations at the expense of employees, I have maintained that governance is, as Sassen (2010: 158) has argued, indeed ‘embedded’ into the services provided. From that follows that even ‘minor’ global cities are strategic governance places from where the transfer of wealth towards the centres of the world economy is organised.

scholarly journals The role of intermediaries in governance of global production networks: Restructuring work relations in Pakistan’s apparel industry

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 560-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamal Munir ◽  
Muhammad Ayaz ◽  
David L Levy ◽  
Hugh Willmott
Keyword(s):  
Price Competition ◽  
Adjustment Process ◽  
Production Network ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Global Production Networks ◽  
Work Relations ◽  
Professional Management ◽  
Restructuring Process ◽  
Apparel Companies

This article locates the reorganization of work relations in the apparel sector in Pakistan, after the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quota regime, within the context of a global production network (GPN). We examine the role of a network of corporate, state, multilateral and civil society actors who serve as intermediaries in GPN governance. These intermediaries transmit and translate competitive pressures and invoke varied, sometimes contradictory, imaginaries in their efforts to realign and stabilize the GPN. We analyse the post-MFA restructuring of Pakistan’s apparel sector, which dramatically increased price competition and precipitated a contested adjustment process among Pakistani and global actors with divergent priorities and resources. These intermediaries converged on a ‘solution’ that combined and enacted imaginaries of modernization, competitiveness, professional management and female empowerment, while also emphasizing low costs and female docility. We highlight the intersection of economic, political and cultural dynamics of GPNs, and reveal the gendered dimensions of GPN restructuring. We theorize the role of these actors as a transnational managerial elite in GPN governance, who led a restructuring process that preserved the hegemonic stability of the GPN and protected the interests of western branded apparel companies and consumers, but did not necessarily serve the interests of workers.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document