Understanding labour processes in global production networks: a case study of the football industry in Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Over the last few decades, the changing nature of global production and distribution processes has raised a number of critical questions regarding work and employment relations. Presenting a qualitative case study of the football industry in Pakistan as an example of the general mechanism of the social relations of re/production in a global system of industrial organization, this research highlights how and under what conditions informal workers are embedded in extended global production networks. By drawing on the integrated conceptual framework of the global production network (GPN) and labour process theory (LPT), this research sheds light on the working conditions and living realities of informal workers. A potential contribution of this paper is to extend the horizon of production network theory by analysing the work and employment conditions of informal workers, which are absent in existing discussions of these conceptual frameworks.     

CDS and rating announcements: changing signaling during the crisis?

In parallel with the development of credit derivatives market, researchers have begun to explore the relationship between Credit Default Swap (CDS) market and rating events. Many papers, via classical event-study methodology, show that CDS market is able to signal future negative rating events announced by credit rating agencies. In this work, we incorporate into the event-study methodology the ability of Markov switching models in modeling state-dependent means and variances. This approach allows to get over the drawbacks of the classical methodology, which ignores the heteroscedasticity and volatility clustering often affecting financial time series. The proposed methodology is applied to study the reactions of CDS quotes to reviews for downgrading and effective downgradings announced by the three major credit rating agencies (Fitch Ratings, Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s), in order to examine if and to what extent CDS market anticipates announcements related with a company’s creditworthiness. The analysis, focusing mainly on volatility, is performed on two periods, 2004–2006 and 2007–2009, in order to verify whether a change in the signaling power of CDS quotes can be ascribed to recent financial turmoils.     

External knowledge search,absorptive capacity and radical innovation in high-technology firms

Open innovation and absorptive capacity are two concepts based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally to improve their innovation performance. The aim of this paper is to analyse the joint effect of open innovation and absorptive capacity on a firm's radical innovation. Open innovation is expressed in terms of external search breadth and depth strategies and absorptive capacity is described by distinguishing between potential and realized absorptive capacity. In order to test our hypotheses, we carried out empirical research in firms operating in high-technology industries. The results indicate that internal routines and processes for absorbing external knowledge help explain radical innovation as they show a significant effect of potential and realized absorptive capacity. Also, there is a moderating effect of absorptive capacity on open innovation. Specifically, potential absorptive capacity exerts a positive effect on the relationship between external search breadth and depth and radical innovation. Realized absorptive capacity moderates the influence of external search breadth. These findings confirm the complementary nature of absorptive capacity and open innovation search strategies on radical innovation.