Since economists traditionally focus on market activities, women's non-wage labour has not been registered in works on economic development. On the other hand, women's wage labour has been described as supplementary or marginal to the household income as well as to economic development as a whole. The contributors to this collection did their research on women workers in countries from the core, the semiperiphery, and the periphery. The eight articles are introduced by Kathryn Ward, who presents a critical overview of the literature on women workers and globalization. In Ward's opinion we have to develop new definitions for some key concepts in our theories on women and work. These concepts should aim at including housework and work in the informal sector, and women's various acts of resistance. Ward also suggests new perspectives from which we should theorize about women's work in the process of global restructuring.
There is within the corporate world an evolving international restructuring race,between industrial complexes,that is set to intensify over the coming years.An industrial complex consists of suppliers,distributors,governments,financiers and trade unions.It is the reorganisation of the relationship between the core firm and the above components that is set to change before very long. In this book, Winfied Ruigrok and Rob van Tulder address many current debates on topics such as "Post-Fordism","globalisation" and "lean production".They also identify a number pf rival internationalisation strategies that have been adopted by different companies.Moreover,they present an abundance of new,as well as historical data,on the world's one hundred largest core companies.This data shows that none of the largest core firms is truly "global" or "borderless",and that virtually all of them in their history have benefited decisively from Governmental trade or industrial policies. The authors offer a highly interdisciplinary effort to link three previously isolated debates on industrial restructuring,globalisation and international trade policies.The Logic of International Restructuring is aimed at a wide academic,post-graduate and professional audience working in the areas of business,economics,organisational studies and international relations.
Drawing upon case studies of the steel industry in the US, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and India, this book explains how and why the steel industry has shifted from advanced capitalist countries to late industrializing countries. Anthony P. D'Costa examines the relationship between industrial change and institutional responses to technological diffu
Cover page -- Halftitle page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Title Page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Contributors -- Preface -- 1 Motor vehicle manufacturing: the representative industry -- 2 The world automotive industry intransition -- 3 New horizons? The Third World motor vehicle industry in an international framework -- 4 The transformation of the Japanese motor vehicle industry and its role in the world: industrial restructuring and technical evolution -- 5 The impact of Japanese investment in the United States -- 6 Nothing new about Nissan? -- 7 Motor components: locational issues in an international industry -- 8 Vertical integration or disintegration? The case of the UK car parts industry -- 9 Restructuring the Swedish manufacturing industry - the case of the motor vehicle industry -- 10 Subcontracting in the motor industry: a case study in Coventry -- 11 Industrial restructuring and the labour force: the case of Austin Rover in Longbridge, Birmingham -- 12 Policy implications of trends and changes in the vehicle and components industries: the case of the West Midlands -- Bibliography -- Index
Across the world, food systems and agricultural systems are changing at a phenomenal rate. Widespread restructuring has not been confined to the production and distribution of food, though; many regions and even nations are undergoing social, political, and economic transformation as well. Bringing together twelve essays by scholars from a number of disciplines, I this timely book documents the interdependence of food systems, nation states, and the world economy. Stressing the political foundations of global agro-food systems, it sheds light on such complex questions as whether today's changes in food and agrarian systems anticipate a new world order, or are merely efforts to preserve an old order in crisis.
While acquisitions and expansion strategies are understood as exciting in the business world, contraction activities are received less enthusiastically. Nevertheless, portfolio restructuring constitutes a strategic tool to increase the strategic focus of firms and achieve economies of scale and an efficient control of multiple business units. This restructuring thus has distinct implications for companies and units. The Handbook of Research on Corporate Restructuring and Globalization provides emerging research on the theoretical infrastructure for portfolio restructuring in a single piece of work and explores important topics in the field including the implications on foreign and domestic units and the degree to which increasing globalization influences restructuring practices. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as emerging markets, risk assessment, and global business, this book is ideally designed for corporate managers, government officials, scholars, researchers, and students.
The essays in this book provide the elements for a new theory of spatial development to explain the new socio-territorial reality produced by global restructuring in the 1970s and 1980s. The contributors all account for the contemporary territorial units by focusing on global economic dynamics and the history of particular places. The book looks at restructuring in the automobile and electronics industries; the significance of migrant labour and the informal economy; the consequences of female proletarianization in Southeast Asia; the implications for regional development of the incorporation of Mexico and Malaysia in the world economy; the internationalization of commercial capital and the development of financial centres;
Interrogating the New Economy is a collection of original essays investigating the New Economy and how changes ascribed to it have impacted labour relations, access to work, and, more generally, the social and cultural experiences of work in Canada. Based on years of participatory research, sector-specific studies, and quantitative and qualitative data collection, the work accounts for the ways in which the contemporary workplace has changed but also the extent to which older forms of work organization still remain. The collection begins with an overview of the key social and economic transformations that define the New Economy. It then illustrates these transformations through examples, including essays on wine tourism, the regeneration of mining communities, the place of student workers, and changes in the public service workplace. It also addresses unions and their responses to the restructuring of work, as well as other forms of resistance.
Following the restructuring process which swept away the traditional manufacturing economy of the inner city 25 years ago, new industries are transforming these former post-industrial landscapes. These creative, technology-intensive industries include Internet services, computer graphics and imaging, and video game production. The development dynamics of these new sectors are volatile in comparison with those of the classic ‘Industrial City’. But these new industries highlight the unique role of the inner city in facilitating creative processes, innovation and social change. Further, they reflect the intensity of interaction between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ in the metropolis, and represent key agencies of urban place-making and re-imaging. This book addresses the critical intersections between process and place which underpin the formation of creative enterprises in the emergent industrial districts of the ‘new inner city’. It contains intensive case studies of industrial restructuring within exemplary sites in prominent world cities such as London, Singapore, San Francisco and Vancouver. The studies demonstrate the global reach of development and innovation across these cities and sites, marked by clustering, rapid firm turnover, and interdependency between production and consumption activity. The evocative case studies, brought to life by interviews, sequential mapping exercises, media narratives, and photography, also disclose the importance of local factors (including urban scale, built form, property markets and policy) which shape both the specific industrial structures and socio-economic impacts. The New Economy of the Inner City places inner city new industry formation within the development history of the city, and underscores its role in larger processes of urban transformation. The findings inform a critique and synthesis of urban theory which frame the evolving conditions of the 21st century metropolis. This book would be useful to researchers and students of Geography, Urban Studies, Economics and Planning.
The writing of this book was largely motivated by the ongoing unprecedented world-wide restructuring of the power industry. This move away from the traditional monopolies and toward greater competition, in the form of increased numbers of independent power producers and an unbundling of the main services that were until now provided by the utilities, has been building up for over a decade. This change was driven by the large disparities in electricity tariffs across regions, by technological developments that make it possible for small producers to compete with large ones, and by a widely held belief that competition will be beneficial in a broad sense. All of this together with the political will to push through the necessary legislative reforms has created a climate conducive to restructuring in the electric power industry. Consequently, since the beginning of this decade dramatic changes have taken place in an ever-increasing list of nations, from the pioneering moves in the United Kingdom, Chile and Scandinavia, to today's highly fluid power industry throughout North and South America, as well as in the European Community. The drive to restructure and take advantage of the potential economic benefits has, in our view, forced the industry to take actions and make choices at a hurried pace, without the usual deliberation and thorough analysis of possible implications. We must admit that to speak of "the industry" at this juncture is perhaps disingenuous, even misleading.
