Limits to expansion: transnational corporations and territorial embeddedness in the Japanese temporary staffing market

Recent changes to employment legislation have combined with shifting macro‐economic conditions to drive dramatic growth in Japan's temporary staffing industry. Leading transnational staffing agencies have sought to capitalize on this growth as part of their wider globalization strategies but have faced substantial challenges both in entering the market and in their subsequent attempts at expansion. In this article, we explore the ways in which the particularities of the Japanese host market regulatory and institutional environment combine with the inherent characteristics of the temporary staffing business model to challenge the expansionary strategies of these firms. We argue that while transnational firms have sought to adapt their business practices and strategies to the Japanese case, the attributes of the Japanese staffing market mean they have been unable to make significant inroads into the dominant market shares held by their domestic rivals.     

"Dependency as a Problem to Be Solved": Rehabilitation and the American Liberal Consensus on Welfare in the 1950s

This article examines the transformation of federal Aid to DependentChildren legislation in the 1950s, in which welfare's officiallystated purpose was changed from promoting women's caregivingroles to promoting "self-care and self-support." I argue thata changing welfare clientele and a new set of policy actorspromoted this reform of welfare, reviving concepts of dependencyand rehabilitation that had been elements of early twentieth-centurywelfare. Rather than simply bringing old concepts to the fore,however, the 1950s redefined the meaning of dependency and rehabilitationin keeping with postwar society. Psychological adjustment andeconomic self-sufficiency displaced moral uplift and socialconformity as the primary discourses of welfare. While welfarepolicies had historically addressed either family life or economicindependence, my analysis demonstrates that postwar welfarereform explicitly highlighted both for the first time. In doingso, it introduced new roles the state might play in family lifeand in encouraging the employment of women. Rehabilitative welfarereform thus reconfigured the entitlement status of low-incomewomen within the welfare state.     

气候资本主义:低碳经济的政治学

我们很可能处在亲历气候资本主义出现的初级阶段。它是一种基于逐渐摆脱和远离化石燃料使用来持续经济发展的资本主义新形式,其中,脱碳被看作是一种缓和资本主义积累与抑制气候变化要求之间矛盾的机遇。但是,它依然是一种资本主义——通过市场、私有财产和工人阶级等要素组织起来,而且经济增长是其至高无上的律令。在未来几十年里,无论哪种具体版本的气候资本主义的出现,它实现脱碳的能力将取决于其导向低能源和低碳能源的投资的能力,同时还要处理好合法性的挑战,这些挑战不可避免地来自这种将全球金融作为管理碳排放手段的依赖。就全球气候变化管治的发展而言,无论是在《联合国气候变化框架公约》之下,还是最终超越了这一框架,成功的关键在于它是否能够创造一个有力的环境使全球经济转变为一种与强调气候变化相容的气候资本主义制度,或者,碳市场只是一种其取向与严肃应对气候危机的诸多努力不相容的经济制度中的孤立性存在。     

Feminist Activists On‐line: A Study of the PAR‐L Research Network*

Dans cet article, les auteures analysent une des premières listes de discussion électronique féministes canadiennes, PAR‐L (Liste politique, action, recherche). En se fondant en grande partie sur les résultats d'un sondage en ligne effectué auprès des abonnées et abonnés de PAR‐L, elles démontrent que, même chez les féministes sensibles aux questions de diversité et d'egalité, les écarts de pouvoir liés au sexe, à l'âge, au langage et à l'affiliation professionnelle influent sur l'interaction en ligne. Alors qu'elles reconnaissent que la présence simultanée de différences dans un espace partagé crée des tensions, elles soutiennent que cette caractéristique a également le potentiel d'améliorer la communication démocratique et d'approfondir la compréhension mutuelle à l'intérieur du mouvement des femmes, menant à un plus grand sens de la connexité et du bien‐etre chez les participantes. This paper presents an analysis of one of Canada's first feminist electronic discussion lists, PAR‐L (Policy, Action, Research List). Based largely on the results of an on‐line survey of PAR‐L subscribers, we show that, even among feminists sensitive to issues of diversity and equality, power differentials related to gender, age, language and professional affiliation influence on‐line interaction. While we acknowledge that the co‐presence of differences in a shared space creates tensions, we argue that it also has the potential to enhance democratic communication and deepen mutual understanding within the women's movement, leading to a greater sense of connectedness and well‐being among participants.     

Occupational Gender Segregation in Canada, 1981–1996: Overall,Vertical and Horizontal Segregation*

Cet article examine les changements survenus entre 1981 et 1996 dans la ségrégation hommes‐femmes. Le niveau de ségrégation dans son ensemble a faiblement baissé, suivant en cela la tendance observée depuis les années soixante. La diminution se traduit par une décroissance de 41% de la ségrégation verticale (équité salariale) mais par une augmentation de la ségrégation horizontale (différences autres que cette équité). Les femmes ont renforcé leur point d'ancrage dans la main‐d'?uvre à plein temps et élargi L'étendue de leur participation alors que celle des hommes dans des secteurs à temps partiel et moins prisés a augmenté, et que les emplois traditionnellement occupés par des hommes ont connu un déclin et ont vu L'arrivée des femmes. This article examines changes in gender segregation in Canada between 1981 and 1996. Overall segregation declined slightly. This is a continuation of a trend occurring since the 1960s. The decline comprises a 41% decrease in vertical segregation, representing inequality associated with occupational earnings, and increases in horizontal segregation, difference without such inequality. Women strengthened their footholds in the full‐time work force and diversified their breadth of participation, just as men's participation in part‐time and less desirable enclaves began to increase, and as traditionally male occupations experienced both decline and some influx of female workers.     

Your E‐mail Trail: Where Ethics Meets Forensics1

This article addresses ethical and legal issues arising from the increasing use of e‐mail and other forms of instant written communication in the conduct of business. E‐mail communications are often casual and informal. Yet e‐mail is a written record that can be more permanent and widely accessible than a paper communication. This article focuses on the implications of this fact, including (1) how individuals compromise their own privacy by the voluntary use of e‐mail; (2) how e‐mail has complicated the duty of confidentiality of employees to employers, and professionals to clients; (3) whether the use of e‐mail affects ethical deliberation and choice; and (4) the use of e‐mail as evidence of corporate conduct and intent in civil and criminal litigation. The article suggests that e‐mail users think “forensically” about their e‐mail—i.e., consider its potential as evidence in the context of other emails and underlying events—before pressing the “send” button.     

Boiled Eggs and Baked Beans - a personal account of a hearing researcher's journey through Deaf Culture

This article forms a reflexive account of the trials, pains and joys of the launch of a hearing researcher into 'Deaf Culture' - the unique world of British Sign Language (BSL) users. Three resources of reflexive data are utilised; the researcher's experiences of learning BSL with other hearing signers; participant observation data from a Unit for Deaf people with psychiatric problems and finally, experiences of interviewing members of a national organisation of Deaf people. These experiences reflect the assumptions and preconceptions the hearing world holds concerning Deaf people and the remarkable ways in which the latter rationalise them and attempt to subvert them. The intellectual issues addressed here concern the role and status of researchers within foreign settings, the problems of enculturisation and the physical and social effects experienced whilst undertaking this type of research.     

WAGES, RENTS, AND AMENITIES: DIFFERENCES AMONG WORKERS AND REGIONS

What explains persistent regional earnings differences? This paper argues that regional differences in amenities can account for the wage differences; in contrast, cost of living variations do not account for wage differences, but actually exacerbate them. This conclusion results from a model in which variations in rents and wages are equalizing differences for amenity differences. Empirical results are consistent with the model.     

The Language of Exclusion in F. Solly Flood's “History of the Permit System in Gibraltar”1

Abstract By 1871, the year in which Flood presented his “History of the Permit System” he had been in office as Attorney General for six years. He had originally been sent to Gibraltar to prepare an Order on sanitary reform after the town had been struck by a minor cholera epidemic in 1860 although a far more severe outbreak was to strike in 1865. Overcrowding was isolated as a primary agent of contagion and perceived to be a major threat to the troops given that the military lived in very close proximity to civilians. The unchecked ingress of foreigners or aliens was therefore held by the authorities to represent a major threat to the wellbeing of the Garrison; once resident in the town these aliens added to the already overcrowded living conditions. Their entry therefore needed to be restricted. All these factors contributed to the drive for permit reform. Still, the territorial restrictions placed upon the Rock after conquest most certainly informed the urgent need for population management. The resources available on the Rock were limited yet the demands from inhabitants' on the military for civic provision continued to increase throughout the nineteenth century. Flood's document subsequently draws our attention to the tensions brought about by Gibraltar's dual status as Colony and Fortress, a major concern of Flood's being that military expediency was becoming seriously undermined by an ever expanding town inhabited by a resident civilian population that was increasingly alien in composition. His aim therefore was to take measures to ensure that the only permanent presence in Gibraltar was that of the Garrison.