Unequal networks: comparing the pre‐migration overseas networks of Indonesian and Filipino migrant domestic workers

Previous studies of Asian migrant domestic workers' pre‐migration overseas networks have tended to be ethnographic, small‐n case studies such that it is unclear if network differences between migrants are due to individual‐ or country‐level differences or both. This article draws from an original survey of 1,206 Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore and Hong Kong to reveal statistically significant differences in the pre‐migration overseas networks of these two nationality groups even after controlling for migrants' educational attainment, marital status, employment status, age, year of first migration, and survey location. Multiple regression analysis highlights how Filipino respondents are more likely than Indonesian respondents to have known existing migrants prior to their first migration from their homeland. Filipino respondents' overseas networks are also significantly larger, more geographically dispersed, and comprise more white‐collar contacts. These findings open up new terrain for migration scholars to study the impact of these nationality‐based network differences on the two groups' divergent migration experiences and aspirations.     

Reconsidering the role of the digital in global production networks

Global production networks (GPNs) have become a key framework in conceptualizing linkages, power and structure in globalized production. However, this framework has been less successful in integrating the influence of digital information and ICTs in production, and this problematic in a world where relationships and power are increasingly mediated by digital information flows and resources. We thus look to adapt the GPN framework to allow more substantive analysis of ‘the digital’. Primarily, this is done through a theoretical analysis of the three core categories of the GPN framework – embeddedness, value and networks – to highlight how these categories can better integrate a more dynamic and contested conceptualization of the digital. Illustrations from research on the digitalization of tea sector GPNs in East Africa highlight how these theoretical advances provide new insights on the digital and its expanding role in economic production.     

Kenya's tourist industry and global production networks: gender,race and inequality

In this article, I consider the position of gender and race in the tourism global production network in Kenya. To address a gap in scholarship on global production networks, I explore the racial and gender characteristics evident in functionally upgraded national tour operators and socially upgraded workers and community members around the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The main findings address the relation of race and gender to disarticulation practices identified in ‘societal’, ‘network’ and ‘territorial’ forms of embeddedness supported by racial and gender representations of skill capabilities and tourist desires. These practices and representations support a production network symbolized by whites, Kenyan‐Asians and expatriates in the highest value segments and jobs, and indigenous African, Maasai and female workers in the lowest value positions. The findings highlight how disarticulation in economic and social upgrading is a gendered and racial process that perpetuates social difference and hierarchy.     

The social field of the European corporate elite: a network analysis of interlocking directorates among Europe's largest corporate boards

In this article I investigate the emerging patterns of the European corporate elite network as an example of a European social field, as described by Fligstein. The findings confirm that interlocking directorates form a European corporate network. However, the intercorporate network rests on a very small group of European corporate elite members: it remains the playground of a select few pan‐European ‘big linkers’. Although financial institutions and bankers appear in the upper echelons of the network, they do not occupy crucial positions. Rather, (former) CEOs of Europe's largest big non‐financial businesses knit together the network of interlocking directorates. The network rests on a coalescence of finance and industry, rather than on the dominance of the one over the other. Although the project of European unification has been quite successful in organizing the formal institutional structures, it has not yet led to reproduction of a European business community reminiscent of the national communities.     

The duality of world cities and firms: comparing networks,hierarchies, and inequalities in the global economy

Much of the research on globalization conceives of the global economy as structured by networks among places, while separately organizational research has examined the role of networks among firms in structuring competition, collaboration, and cooperation. In both cases, position and centrality within the network confers certain advantages and disadvantages, the distribution of which defines a hierarchy. In this article, I explore the idea of dual networks of world cities and firms, then use Breiger's approach to define two such networks: one among 313 world cities, another among 100 advanced producer service firms. Comparison of the degree of inequality in the hierarchies implied by these networks suggest that world city hierarchies are steeper than firm hierarchies (that is there is greater inequality among cities). Thus, even under conditions of footloose global capitalism, place still matters: where a producer is located has more impact than who provides support services.     

When theory meets methods: the naissance of computer assisted corporate interlock research

In this article, we study the emergence of computer aided network analysis as an example of ‘Mertonian’ multiple discovery. Computer assisted quantitative network analysis emerged around 1970 and small groups of researchers in different universities, who were independent of each other and looking for the right concepts and computer programs to implement graph theory in social analysis, first applied it to corporate interlock networks. We show how mathematical graph theory provided a toolbox for systematic network analysis and that simultaneously in the Netherlands and the United States this toolbox found an application in the study of corporate power. A historical narrative covers the three main centres in which large‐scale corporate network analysis emerged – Amsterdam, California and Stony Brook. For each centre, we provide a sketch of the people involved, the tools they used, and the motivations that brought them to this topic. Our analysis makes clear that one cannot understand the emergence of computer aided network analysis without considering the personal and often political motivations of those who engaged in the first board interlock studies. Insurgent students of political science and sociology pushed for a research agenda on corporate power and found support from scholars who were keen to develop innovative network analysis methods. Hence, corporate network analysis became a legitimate field of research.     

Hybrid networks and the global politics of the digital revolution – a practice‐oriented,relational and agnostic approach

The rapid growth of internet users and the importance of networked technologies for most spheres of life raise questions about how to foster and govern the digital revolution on a global scale. Focusing on internet governance and the use of ICTs for development purposes, I provide a multi‐sited, ethnographic exploration of two UN‐based multi‐stakeholder arrangements – comprising governments, business and civil society groups – that have contributed to the construction of the digital revolution as an object of global governance. In this article I show how analytical insights from governmentality studies and actor‐network theory can be used to capture how objects of governance and organizational arrangements are constructed and consolidated. Conventional approaches to networks and governance tend to treat organizational arrangements and issue areas as bounded, separate and fixed. By contrast, I demonstrate the merits of a practice‐oriented, relational and agnostic research strategy, which foregrounds the governmental techniques and moments of translation involved when new objects and modes of governance are assembled and negotiated.     

Understanding the geographical development of social movements: a web‐link analysis of Slow Food

Slow Food (SF) is a global, grassroots movement aimed at enhancing and sustaining local food cultures and traditions worldwide. Since its establishment in the 1980s, Slow Food groups have emerged across the world and embedded in a wide range of different contexts. In this article, we explain how the movement, as a diverse whole, is being shaped by complex dynamics existing between grassroots flexibilities and emerging drives for movement coherence and harmonization. Unlike conventional studies on social movements, our approach helps one to understand transnational social movements as being simultaneously coherent and diverse bodies of collective action. Drawing on work in the fields of relational geography, assemblage theory and webometric research, we develop an analytical strategy that navigates and maps the entire Slow Food movement by exploring its ‘double articulation’ between the material‐connective and ideational‐expressive. Focusing on representations of this connectivity and articulation on the internet, we combine methodologies of computation research (webometrics) with more qualitative forms of (web) discourse analysis to achieve this. Our results point to the significance of particular networks and nodal points that support such double movements, each presenting core logistical channels of the movement's operations as well as points of relay of new ideas and practices. A network‐based analysis of ‘double articulation’ thus shows how the co‐evolution of ideas and material practices cascades into major trends without having to rely on a ‘grand', singular explanation of a movement's development.     

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AN ASSEMBLY STATION WITH INPUT FROM MULTIPLE FABRICATION LINES

We develop analytical models for performance evaluation of Fabrication/Assembly (F/A) systems. We consider an F/A system that consists of an assembly station with input from K fabrication lines. Each fabrication line consists of one or more fabrication stations. The system is closed with a fixed number of items circulating between each fabrication line and the assembly station. We present algorithms to estimate the throughput and mean queue lengths of such systems with exponential processing times. We then extend our approach to analyze F/A systems with general processing time distributions. Numerical comparisons with simulations demonstrate the accuracy of our approach.     

THE IMPACT OF PRODUCT RECOVERY ON LOGISTICS NETWORK DESIGN

Efficient implementation of closed‐loop supply chains requires setting up appropriate logistics structures for the arising flows of used and recovered products. In this paper we consider logistics network design in a reverse logistics context. We present a generic facility location model and discuss differences with traditional logistics settings. Moreover, we use our model to analyze the impact of product return flows on logistics networks. We show that the influence of product recovery is very much context dependent. While product recovery may efficiently be integrated in existing logistics structures in many cases, other examples require a more comprehensive approach redesigning a company's logistics network in an integral way.