The role of local stakeholders in transforming economic upgrading into social upgrading in Ethiopian textile and garment firms

The authors examine the links between economic and social upgrading in a developing country with stringent industry policy and employment legislation, focusing on the strategies of local firms participating in global apparel production networks. Based on the 2015 case studies of five textile and garment firms in Ethiopia, they find that employment security and physical well-being were driven mainly by government labour regulations negotiated by local employers, workers and trade unions rather than by global buyers and conclude that upgrading and downgrading can occur simultaneously within a firm.     

Upgrading,uneven development,and jobs in the North American apparel industry

In this article we examine the developmental consequences of globalization at multiple scales, using a commodity chains framework to investigate the case of the North American apparel industry. In the first section we outline the apparel commodity chain and offer a brief typology of its lead firms. In the second section we discuss the concept of industrial upgrading and describe several main export roles in the global apparel industry. In the third section we focus on the regional dynamics resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). We contrast the Mexican experience with that of countries in the Caribbean Basin to show the impact of distinct trade policies on export‐oriented development. We argue that NAFTA is creating upgrading opportunities for some Mexican firms to move from the low value‐added export‐oriented assembly (or maquila) model to full‐package production. In the fourth section we explore the unevenness of upgrading dynamics through a comparison of two blue jeans manufacturing clusters in the United States and Mexico: El Paso and Torreon. Our conclusions about upgrading and uneven development in the North American apparel industry emphasize the importance of local, national and regional institutional contexts in shaping inter‐firm networks and their development impact.     

Social upgrading and cooperative corporate social responsibility in global value chains: the case of Fairphone in China

In this article, we explore how a lead firm's strategy for corporate social responsibility influences the social upgrading of a supplier in a global value chain. Based on a single case study approach, we investigate the interaction between Dutch smartphone producer Fairphone and its Chinese supplier Guohong. On the one hand, the case illustrates how a cooperative approach to corporate social responsibility can lead to progress in suppliers' social upgrading. In particular, we highlight the role of a so‐called workers' welfare fund as a mechanism not only for improving measurable labour standards but also for enabling rights. On the other hand, the case demonstrates how the limited production and technological capabilities of the suppliers, a competitive market environment and lead firms' limited strategic access to the supply chain might constrain the extent of social upgrading through a cooperative approach towards corporate social responsibility in a global value chain.     

Global production and local jobs: can global enterprise networks be used as levers for local development?

This article is developed out of a research project on ‘Global Production and Local Jobs’ launched by the International Institute for Labour Studies of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It identifies salient features of global production networks in the automobile, electronics and apparel industries, and discusses their implications for local industrial upgrading, jobs and development policy. The approach combines in novel forms complementary analytical frameworks such as the global value chain and industrial district perspectives, in order to highlight interactions between global and local forces in the operation of transnational production networks. Central issues revealed by this approach include: the rise of entry barriers into the most profitable, service‐intensive activities of global value chains, that reduce small firms' prospects for industrial upgrading; the uneven benefits derived from participation in global production networks at the local level; and the need for local institutions to devise policy responses through a flexible, network‐oriented approach involving a broad local constituency.     

Global decisions versus local realities: Sustainability standards,priorities and upgrading dynamics in agricultural global production networks

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) in global production networks (GPNs) have grown significantly in prominence. Existing research largely assumed that VSSs create linear upgrading outcomes for all GPN actors and has studied VSSs from the point of adoption in the GPNs, rather than a broader range of stages in their lifecycle. To address these limitations, and building on literature around power and agency in GPNs, we develop the constellation of priorities (CoP) model to unpack the diverse and often diverging boardroom (Northern lead firm) and local (Southern supplier) priorities involved in such standards. Through in-depth fieldwork on horticulture in Kenya and cocoa in Nicaragua across the VSS lifecycle, we find significant divergences in priorities between farmer groups in both countries and lead firms in the UK and Germany. We demonstrate analytically and empirically that diverging priorities coupled with power asymmetries produced contestations, leading to simultaneous economic and environmental downgrading, and social upgrading.     

Rethinking the dynamic of global production networks: Integrate the influence of suppliers and towards a flexible strategy making causal mechanism

The global production network (GPN) 2.0 framework mainly considers the organizational capabilities of lead firms, neglecting the influence of supplier capabilities on the strategic making of lead firms. I argue that the GPN 2.0 framework must integrate the influence of supplier capabilities (both industrial and individual firm levels) to better explain the organization of the global economy. Industrial-level capability determines the possible strategic choices that firms may make under certain dynamic combinations, whereas the individual firm level determines the geographic extension direction of GPNs. Therefore, this study incorporates the influence of suppliers and builds a more flexible strategy-making causal mechanism other than the definitive and limiting causal mechanism in GPN 2.0. I hope this article can promote the further development of GPN 2.0 and convey some valuable concepts to make it perform better in deconstructing the organization of the global economy in the real world.     

Strategic coupling as capacity: how seaports connect to global flows of containerized transport

Strategic coupling refers to the process of matching local assets with global network demands. Although the concept has benefited from an increase in relational thinking, several critical issues remain unresolved. In this article, we identify and discuss three such issues – the characteristics of the entities involved in strategic coupling, the way in which the ‘local’ is conceptualized in the context of ‘global’ positioning, and the understanding of strategic action. To address these issues, we use Cox's notion of ‘spaces of dependence and engagement’ in combination with Ball's concept of the ‘structure of provision’. The case of the port of Rotterdam demonstrates the value of our perspective in elucidating the process of ‘strategic coupling’ within global networks of containerized traffic.     

Demografischer Wandel,Alterung und Arbeitsmarkt in Deutschland

Debates about the consequences of demographic change for the labor market relate to two distinct levels; both will be addressed in this chapter. First, demographic ageing changes the composition of the workforce. Theories about how labor markets work lead to the conclusion that demographic changes do not affect immediately supply and demand of labor and the structure of the workforce. Rather, consequences of demographic changes are moderated by labor market institutions.Second, demographic ageing has consequences for the organization of work. Permanent topics of sociological research are consequences of ageing workforces in the firm for productivity and innovation, consequences of ageing workforces for human resource policies of firms, extent of and coping with the problem of limited durations to perform strenuous work tasks, and consequences of ageing workforces for industrial relations. One central finding is that firms meet various challenges in their external and internal environments, among them being ageing workforces only one. Moreover, as strategic actors, different firms can choose different strategies even in similar environments. Consequences of demographic changes for work organization on enterprise level are, therefore, far from deterministic.     

Exploring the joint dynamics of intercity internet and corporate networks: a stochastic actor‐based modelling approach

In this article, I show one possible solution to synthesis dynamics in multiple intercity networks. I adopt a stochastic actor‐based modelling approach to explore the co‐evolution of an intercity corporate network of 57 globalized advanced producer service firms across 93 cities, and another intercity internet network between these 93 cities, for the period 2004–2010. Stochastic actor‐based models (SABMs) help to connect interactions among cities and firms on the local scale with empirically observed networks on the global scale. My analysis accounts for the co‐evolution/interdependence among multiple world city networks (WCNs) and associated network changes in individual WCNs with exogenous city‐related covariates and endogenous local network structures.     

重化工业对港口城市可持续发展的影响及对策

港口城市的重化工业厂商通过区位选择决策而不是生产决策,就可获取既定的区位利益。这种发展模式对于生态与环境而言,具有比内陆地区更大的双刃性。应该通过区位优势利益外部性的发挥与引导,处理好区位利益双重性之间关于可持续发展的矛盾关系。工业结构的高度化、产业结构优化和产业结构的信息化等,是港口城市工业结构重工业化的优选发展方向。     

The link between economic and social upgrading in global supply chains: Experiences from the Southern Cone

This article uses nine case studies of global supply chains (GSCs) in Southern Cone countries to explore the extent to which economic and social upgrading are linked and spread from lead firms to their supply chain. While economic and social upgrading are found in lead firm segments throughout the case studies, the impacts on suppliers are varied. Pattern groupings enable the authors to develop a three‐part typology of development in GSCs, in the light of which they consider the roles of public policies, company behaviour and social actors in addressing developmental outcomes for GSC lead firms and suppliers.     

Oligopolistic suppliers,symbiotic value chains and workers' bargaining power: labour contestation in South China at an ascendant global footwear firm

In this article, I analyse changes in the power relationship between lead firms, manufacturers and workers by examining a strike that took place in South China in 2014 among workers at the Taiwanese footwear giant, Yue Yuen. In the process, I demonstrate that there is a link between increased labour costs, capital consolidation and greater value capture at the bottom of the global supply chain. I argue that footwear value chains are seeing a falling level of monopsony power and the emergence of enormous oligopolistic suppliers, which are transforming the power imbalances of global supply chains towards a more mutually dependent ‘buyer–producer symbiosis’. The Yue Yuen strike shows a maturing industrial working class, facing pressures on social reproduction in China, adapting its bargaining strategies vis‐à‐vis the developmental state. Influxes of profit raise the ceiling for what can be demanded of employers, stimulating those same employers to pursue more aggressive means of holding onto their profits. The example of the Yue Yuen strike is an indicator of what are fundamental changes in the production process, dynamics within the value chain, and power and agency of workers in labour‐intensive production. The strike demonstrates that consolidation is playing a decisive role in shaping the power relationship between domestic manufacturers and transnational brands, which, in turn, is directly affecting the bargaining power of workers.     

Baoren Baoguo: Zhongguo Xinwenshi De Lingyizhong Dufa [To Serve the Nation: Journalists as Prisms of Chinese Press History] edited by CHIN-CHUAN LEE

Social networking sites (SNS) have become an important vehicle for corporate communication. However, there has been little research on how East Asian firms use international SNSs to communicate with global stakeholders. This study compares the communication strategies of Chinese and Japanese companies on Facebook and Twitter and analyzes the public responses and complaints on these corporate SNSs. The results revealed that in addition to the traditional strategies of corporate ability (CA) and corporate social responsibility (CSR), Chinese and Japanese firms adopted the human interest (HI) strategy. The results showed that the Chinese companies in the study sample had a stronger preference for the CSR and interactive strategies, and they responded faster to online complaints compared with the Japanese firms, which were more likely to adopt the strategy of transferring in handling complaints. Moreover, “inviting participation into events” and “seeking specific feedback” were two types of interactive messages that received the highest numbers of responses from the public on Facebook, whereas “promoting sales” showed the highest engagement on Twitter. This study is the first to compare the effectiveness of different corporate response strategies for specific complaint topics on social media. Thus, it contributes to the literature on stakeholder–company interactions.     

The geography of corporate production: Urban,industrial, and organizational systems

This paper examines how the territorial organization of corporate production — the extent to which firms connect places in the city system through intraorganizational relationships of ownership and control — is shaped by urban, industrial, and organization factors. Specifically, we study the determinants of the dispersion of corporate production facilities in the U.S. urban system. We analyze the number of U.S. cities and states in which the largest 500 industrial corporations operated plants in 1964 as a function of the characteristics of the location of the corporate headquarters, the predominant industries in which their plants produce, and their organizational structure. We find that corporate dispersion is shaped by some of the same factors that have been shown to organize the market-based territorial division of labor — the size and functional specialization of cities and the locational requirements of industry. But in addition, organizational attributes — a firm's industrial diversity, its age, and the extent to which it is controlled by families as opposed to managerial coalitions — also influence its geographic dispersion.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1983 annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in Detroit, Michigan.     

Corporate social responsibility driven innovation

This study identifies the substantial relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and innovation activities of firms. Using the French Vigeo sustainability rating and the Thomson Reuters, we divided 619 firms into groups by their industry sectors, regions, and firm characteristics such as size and age. We premise that innovative investment is needed to prepare tomorrow's profits not only by considering investments in technology and in R&D, but also by dealing with sustainability to human, social, environmental, technical, and economic investments. Consequently, when the firm manipulates its short- and long-run business strategies, the consideration of the correlation between types of investment and CSR initiatives will lead to more cooperating effect on the outcome of investments. The findings provide a comprehensive understanding on the effect of sustainable management strategies on the innovation and sustainability of firms.     

Corporate control and enterprise structure in the Canadian economy: 1972–1987

Earlier work has examined corporate control, enterprise structure, and horizontal concentration within the Canadian economy (Berkowitz et al., 1978/1979). Moderately little change was observed in the number of firms and mappings of firms to standard industrial classification areas during the 15 year period in question. There was a considerable decrease in the number of both single-firm and multiple-firm enterprises over this time period. Mean and median enterprise size (number of firms) has increased, while horizontal integration and therefore (as they have traditionally been calculated) conventional measures of corporate concentration within industrial areas, have remained substantially unchanged except in the case of a few marginal industries. The Gini indices of the number of firms mapped to enterprises are substantially the same for the two years measured. There was, however, considerable significant and economically important change in the Canadian corporate system. This change was entirely structural and involved a considerable reduction in the number, and an increase in the strategic importance of, enterprises.     

Renegotiating a Timber Commodity Chain: Lessons from Indonesia on the Political Construction of Global Commodity Chains

This paper shows how political strategies and negotiations influence the construction of the market linkages that form global commodity chains. It provides an account of how an oligopoly of timber-producing firms in the peripheral nation of Indonesia came to dominate the production and export of processed tropical plywood from 1985 to 1998. The oligopoly forged alliances with the state to gain domestic control over producers of the raw material and negotiated an external alliance with Japanese importers to penetrate that core market. Exposing processes of political influence can enrich global commodity chain analysis of market processes in the global political economy.     

Value, knowledge, and the human equation:

conclusion As implied through the issues presented herein, firms must carefully align the value proposition of the IT function with that of the organization. We suggest that firms will increasingly migrate towards strategies and modes of operation that support the cus-tomization of products and services on a mass scale. A key ingredient in accomplish-ing this objective is the creation of an IT function that can deliver systems and technologies that are customized yet modular. Delivery of such systems depends largely on the adoption of processes and development of personnel who can rapidly adapt and configure IT to changes in business conditions. Failure to deliver these systems can result in unrealized corporate objectives and, in some cases, strategic drift.     

Social upgrading in globalized production: The case of the textile and clothing industry

Vertical specialization generated by the international fragmentation of production within global networks is driven not only by comparative advantage, but also by the locational decisions of lead firms which determine the role and bargaining power of local producers in their value chain. This study examines the consequences of such specialization in textiles and clothing for 26 labour‐abundant countries from 1990 to 2007. Fixed effects regressions based on panel data reveal that the industry does not always reap the benefits of the resulting international trade integration. Rather, the authors observe a negative relationship between vertical specialization and relative real wages in the textile and clothing industry.     

如何理解前所未有的机遇和挑战

当前,中国面临国际国内两个环境前所未有的机遇与挑战。国际方面,中国适逢第三次工业革命将重组全球分工体系,以及从商品输出向资本输出、从贸易大国走向资本强国的战略机遇;而美国战略转移东亚和国际金融危机对中国构成前所未有的挑战。国内方面,深化改革和巨大内需市场的红利使我国面临前所未有的发展机遇;而中国廉价的生产要素正逐步消失,经济边疆已扩展到全球,经济逐渐显现出高杠杆率,这些都为中国经济发展带来前所未有的挑战。