The ‘old’ and ‘new’ competition and Malaysian manufacturing firms: a case study

The majority of empirical studies dealing with production processes, work organization and industrial relations practices have been conducted in advanced industrial nations. This article reports on a study of the changing nature of work organization and industrial relations policies in the developing economy of Malaysia. It explores the broad patterns of change in human resource management, technology and work organization among Malaysian manufacturing firms in the context of Best's ‘old’ and ‘new’ competition. The question that arises is: does the evidence reveal that Malaysia is embracing elements of the ‘new competition’, or is it still locked into a regime of mass production, or both? The article argues that the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ competition should not be treated as a simple, straightforward duality model of development. The distinction between the two approaches is sometimes blurred and not so clear-cut. The case study observes that both systems could be operating side by side at the same time within an organization. Since the Malaysian manufacturing sector is expected to shift from simple assembly and process-type operations using labour-intensive techniques to the more advanced and higher value-added industries, greater investment in HRD to upgrade the skills of the work-force and the adoption of appropriate industrial relations policies that emphasize decentralization, greater employee involvement and continuous innovation will become crucial. To be able to compete successfully in the global economy would require a change in focus in the adoption of industrial relations and human resource development policies. For Malaysia to realize its aspiration to become an industrialized and developed nation by the year 2020 would require radical changes in those policies within the context of an integrated approach to economic and industrial planning.     

Antecedents of trust in industrial districts: an empirical analysis of inter-firm relations in a Turkish industrial district

Structural features and institutional settings of industrial districts, rather than contracts as a co-coordinating mechanism, promote trust in exchanges between firms in industrial districts. Based on this assumption, the paper explores the antecedents of trust in a Turkish industrial district at three levels: institutional environment; institutional arrangements; and inter-firm exchanges. In relation to institutional environment, dominant institutions of the Turkish economy – mainly state and finance – and their policies that undermine the role of SMEs in economic development are studied. In this context a third institution, the ‘district association’ that has a vital role in promoting trust-based governance has been analysed. At the second level, formal and informal institutional arrangements that govern the web of exchanges between firms are surveyed. The third level of analysis is directed at entrepreneurs and their attitudes towards family, friendship, expertise and reputation are studied. The research site is the Merter textile district in Istanbul. Data for second and third levels of analysis has been collected through structured interviews and is analysed quantitatively. For institutions and institutional environment, data has been collected mainly by in-depth interviews and is supported by secondary data. Research findings show that informal institutional arrangements are more important than formal arrangements and reputation and expertise of the other firm is more important than family-friendship connections as antecedents of trust.     

Between Regime Fragmentation and Realignment: Irish Industrial Relations in the 1990s

The future of European industrial relations systems has been discussed in the literature in terms of either ‘inter-regime competition’, or progressive ‘intra-regime fragmentation’. Within the context of this debate the article examines developments in Irish industrial relations during the 1990s. The impact of fragmentation on attempts to realign Irish industrial relations practices and institutions in support of a ‘high road’ national competitive and industrial strategy is examined.     

中小企业探索性创新和开发性创新的理论构建及假设

随着资源环境的压力和竞争的日趋激烈,创新对于我国中小企业的生存和发展尤为重要。探索性创新和开发性创新作为创新的两种方式,对企业维持现有的经营和未来的发展起到至关重要的作用。我国中小企业应通过变革组织结构、营造组织文化、建立合理的奖励制度、积极进行工业升级来激发企业的探索性创新和开发性创新能力。在此过程中,企业既要注重新产品开发创新,又要注重市场创新,发挥二元创新的效力,才能在激烈的竞争中求得生存和发展。     

The Evolution of Indian Industrial Relations: A Comparative Perspective

This article examines the evolution of Indian industrial relations in an historical and structural context. In India, the evolution of industrial relations has been ‘incremental’ and ‘adaptive’ and not ‘discontinuous’ and ‘revolutionary’. The relationship between changing industrialisation strategies and industrial relations institutions and practices in India is considerably more subtle than is often supposed in comparative industrial relations narratives, especially when detailed endogenous political economy considerations are taken into account.     

Cultural Districts,Property Rights and Sustainable Economic Growth

The purpose of this article is to analyse the economic properties as well as the institutions governing the start‐up and evolution of cultural districts. The first part of the article reviews the relationships between culture, viewed as an idiosyncratic good, and the theory of industrial districts. The second part comprises a critical discussion of four models of cultural districts: the industrial cultural district (mainly based on positive externalities, localized culture and traditions in ‘arts and crafts’); the institutional cultural district (chiefly relying on the assignment of property rights); the museums cultural district (based on network externalities and the search for optimal size); and the metropolitan cultural district (based on communication technologies, performing arts and electronic trade). The assignment of intellectual property rights to local idiosyncratic cultural goods seems to be the most significant way to differentiate among cultural districts. The final section discusses a possible convergence of all district models towards the institutional district, based on the creation of a system of property rights as a means to protect localized production. Cet article tente d’analyser les propriétés économiques et les institutions qui régissent la création et l’évolution de districts culturels. La première partie étudie les relations entre la culture – vue comme un bien idiosyncrasique – et la théorie des districts industriels. La deuxième partie est un débat critique sur quatre modèles de districts culturels: le district culturel industriel (basé essentiellement sur des externalités positives, des cultures et traditions artisanales locales), le district culturel institutionnel (s’appuyant principalement sur l’attribution de droits de propriété), le district culturel des musées (fondé sur des effets d’entraînement en réseau et la recherche d’une taille optimale), et le district culturel métropolitain (basé sur les technologies de communication, des représentations artistiques et le commerce électronique). L’attribution de droits de propriété intellectuelle sur des biens culturels idiosyncrasiques locaux semble être la meilleure manière de différencier les districts culturels. La dernière partie de l’article examine une convergence possible de tous les modèles de district vers le district institutionnel, en s’appuyant sur la création d’un système de droits de propriété comme moyen de protection d’une production locale.     

中小企业融资难与浙江传统产业升级研究

浙江中小企业的发展对全省经济起到了积极的推动作用,义乌小商品城、永康五金市场等集群经济是浙江经济的亮点。但是,大量研究表明构成浙江产业集群主体的中小企业面临众多问题,其融资难问题已成为阻碍企业发展的瓶颈。另外,我们注意到浙江中小企业以传统产业为主,传统产业易复制的特点在浙江得到充分的"发挥"。本文从中小企业融资的现状入手,结合中小企业的特点分析融资难的原因,并提出以实现产业升级,信贷方式升级,信用升级,产品价值升级四方面的升级来解决中小企业融资难问题。     

The Competitive Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy): Some Evidence from the Clothing and Textile Industry in San Giuseppe Vesuviano

The distinction between ‘the three Italies’– the northern industrial triangle, the underdeveloped Mezzogiorno and the industrial districts of the north east – was first made ten years ago. This distinction aimed to legitimize the existence of regional situations that had previously been ignored. After some years of investigating the southern economy, we need to revisit the analysis of ‘the second Italy’, since it has complex features requiring detailed study. Recent research has revealed the existence of partially underground local systems in the Italian Mezzogiorno, which are not captured by traditional statistical data and display different kinds of linkages. The clothing and textile industry in San Giuseppe Vesuviano is one example of a competitive local production system. Commercial and production enterprises, homeworkers and workshops make up this local fabric. This article focuses on certain aspects of this situation, which have developed spontaneously: regulation mechanisms of informal work, competition and cooperation within the system, the attraction of an immigrant labour force (the Chinese community), evolutionary trends, the low level of criminality and the role of institutions. La distinction établie entre ‘les trois Italie’ le triangle industriel du nord, le Mezzogiorno sous développé et les districts industriels du nord‐est – date d'une décennie. Elle visait à légitimer l'existence de situations régionales jusqu' alors ignorées. Après quelques années d'enquètes sur l'économie méridionale, il convient de revisiter l'analyse de ‘la deuxième Italie’, ses caractéristiques complexes nécessitant des précisions. De récentes recherches ont révélé l'existence, dans le Mezzogiorno italien, de systèmes locaux en partie souterrains, échappant aux statistiques traditionnelles et présentant différentes sortes de liens. Par exemple, l'industrie du textile et de l'habillement de San Giuseppe Vesuviano est l'un des systèmes de production locale compétitifs, où entreprises de fabrication et de commercialisation, travailleurs à domicile et ateliers constituent le tissu local. Cet article se consacre à certains aspects propres à ce cas qui s'est spontanément développé: mécanismes régulateurs du travail irrégulier, concurrence et coopération au sein du système, attraction d'une main‐d'?uvre d'immigrants (communauté chinoise), tendances prévisionnelles, faible niveau de criminalité et rôle des institutions.     

Why SMEs invest in environmental measures: sustainability evidence from small and medium‐sized printing firms

Why do SMEs invest in environmental measures? From the literature we know that most SMEs are rather slow in adopting these sustainable measures, but then the following question arises: why are other SMEs fast in this respect? From our research, it becomes clear that improving the working conditions is the most important reason why these fast‐going SMEs invest in environmental measures, as this probably improves their employees' motivation and performance. This explanation connects ‘planet’ and ‘people’ with each other, and does not exclude ‘profit’, which completes the traditional sustainability circle. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Innovating in the local systems of small medium sized enterprises: the experience of Tuscany

Innovation policies addressed to SMEs in Tuscany (and in Italy as well) have given, so far, a very limited contribution to improving the SMEs performance in terms of competitiveness and technological enhancement. The interpretation the paper attempts to demonstrate is that innovation policies have been designed for a ‘generic’ SME, in a frame of traditional sectors, within administrative areas, whereas successful SMEs are not merely operating in a given sector or area; they are agglomerated in peculiar Spatial Systems of Small Enterprises (SESS). The productive, spacial, social models of functioning of a typical SESS are described in order to:

(i) identify the local mechanism of interdependencies (between firms, labour force and local government), which generates relevant flows of external economies;

(ii) prove that innovation policies have neglected the vital characteristic of the SMEs (their agglomertion in SESSs).

Finally, a new innovation policy for SMEs designed by the Regional Government of Tuscany is presented.     

Lease finance in industrial markets

Financial leasing is being used increasingly to acquire items of industrial equipment where use is more crucial than ownership. Its advantages over traditional forms of finance are straightforward and to a large degree appear to be based on the utilization of a cost advantage deriving from the fiscal system. In view of this, it might be expected that price would be a dominant marketing variable since the ‘product’ is relatively homogeneous, even though the industry structure is oligopolistic. This has been the case to a certain extent but policies of product differentiation and market segmentation have enabled firms to avoid some of the rigours of price competition.     

Industrial ecology and some implications for rural SMEs

In a project at Western Norway Research Institute, the concept of industrial ecology (IE) is used as a framework for environmental performance of small- and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Norway. The main goal of the project ‘Green SMEs’ is to identify existing and future environmental challenges for rural SMEs. The focus is on external demands coming from the surroundings of the individual businesses. Examples of issues being dealt with are industrial wastes becoming sources of raw materials for other industries, design and material choice for disassembly and reuse, development of industrial ecosystems, and industrial metabolism. This paper presents actual examples of industrial ecosystems and also some cases illustrating the problems small remotely located firms meet when the principles of IE are to be applied. These problems include the inability to participate in efficient industrial ecosystems (webs) with exchange of wastes to raw materials. Larger companies, often being more centrally located, have greater chances at identifying and attracting other businesses which they can co‒operate with in finding usage for their wastes. The ‘cluster’‒properties of efficient industrial ecosystems can therefore be a limiting factor in the development of such systems in rural areas. Small companies also have less opportunities to be proactive in establishing industrial ecosystems also merely due to the smaller scale of their operations. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.     

“再工业化”战略下欧美中小企业成长转型经验及启示

中小企业作为＂再工业化＂战略的主要经济载体,是美国提出的＂国家出口倡议＂的重要扶持对象。除了采取减税及加强金融监管来解决中小企业融资问题外,欧美国家还采取了鼓励创新使中小企业向知识密集型企业转变等多项强化措施,促使中小企业转型。金融危机后,我国中小企业出口形势非常严峻,同样面临着成长中的转型问题。从欧美经验来看,解决这一问题的策略是,引导中小企业由资源密集型向知识密集型、创新型企业转变,实现中小企业的生产网络由＂购买者驱动＂型向＂生产者驱动＂型转变,并处理好实体经济与虚拟经济的关系,规范和引导房地产市场发展,避免中小企业产业空心化,同时拉伸和延长中小企业的产业链,使中小企业由单纯制造业成本竞争转向生产性服务业附加值竞争。     

SMEs and the environment: evaluating dissemination routes and handholding levels

The Better Business Pack (BBP), a toolkit intended to enable SMEs to develop plans and activities that would lead to environmental and financial benefits, is evaluated. It is found that in spite of high user evaluation of the toolkit in terms of design, user‐friendliness, being up to date and recognition that little effort was required before returns could be achieved, actual financial and environmental achievements were patchy. The BBP was designed as a stand‐alone package that would stimulate SMEs to embark on this path without further support. However, the nature of the dissemination route and the presence of ‘handholding’ support significantly affected success levels. Furthermore the nature of this support was crucial. The most effective support came from pre‐existing networks and opportunities to learn from fellow users, rather than traditional consultancy and other external agency support. Awards for best practice were also found to be of importance. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Community Leadership and the Construction of Political Legitimacy: Unpacking Bourdieu's ‘Political Capital’ in Post‐Apartheid Johannesburg

Apart from local monographs and normative texts on community participation, research on community leadership constitutes a blind spot in urban leadership, urban politics, social movements and urban studies. This article, based on case studies in post‐apartheid Johannesburg, contributes to theorizing community leadership, or informal local political leadership, by exploring Bourdieu's concepts of ‘political capital’ and ‘double dealings’. Considering community leaders as brokers between local residents and various institutions (in South Africa, the state and the party), we examine how leaders construct their political legitimacy, both towards ‘the bottom’ (building and maintaining their constituencies), and towards ‘the top’ (seeking and sustaining recognition from fractions of the party and the state). These legitimation processes are often in tension, pulling community leaders in contradictory directions, usefully understood under Bourdieu's concept of ‘double dealings’. Community leaders are required, more than formally elected political leaders, to constantly reassert their legitimacy in multiple local public arenas due to the informal nature of their mandate and the high level of political competition between them — with destructive consequences for local polity but also the potential for increased accountability to their followers. We finally reflect on the relevance of this theoretical framework, inspired by Bourdieu, beyond South African urban politics.     

United we stand,divided we fall? Clustered firms’ relationships after the 2008 crisis

Abstract

Research on clusters or industrial districts within various schools of thought focuses on the relationships between clustered firms. We observed that the territory can produce sources of advantage, but also disadvantages, for firms. Using an exploratory and qualitative approach, the aim of this work is to determine what happened in the Spanish ceramic tile industrial district firms’ relationships after the 2008 crisis. The analysis has been performed in three of the dimensions in which these connections can take place: cooperation – horizontal and vertical cooperation, knowledge transfer and supporting institutions, along with innovation as a measure of performance. In order to examine these shifts, members of the firms and institutions in the cluster were interviewed, resulting in eight propositions for changes that may take place when the competition is intensified within a cluster, suggesting an analytical framework that could be tested in future research.     

Restructuring strategies,firms' size and atypical employment in the local productive system of Thessaloniki,Greece

Drawing upon an extended case study in six industrial sectors in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece this paper highlights that the transformation of the local production system is based on the locally specific interaction of two interrelated restructuring trajectories: a ‘weak’ strategy that is mainly associated to small/medium‐sized labour intensive enterprises and a ‘strong’ strategy which is fairly connected to large, increasingly internationalised firms. Both these strategies are found to be in need of cheap labour while they make use of the locally diversified atypical employment pools, though in different ways. In parallel, they presuppose a subordinated integration into subcontracting production systems that expands towards the regional, the Balkan and the international arena. The paper underlines that restructuring strategies in Thessaloniki, especially the prevailing ‘weak’ one, do not seem to alter the conditions of backwardness for the local productive system. Apart from leaving local structures poor in innovative production, automated machinery and non‐hierarchical networking practices they are largely based on diffused, poorly‐paid atypical employment.     

Local discourse and global competition: production experiences in family workshops of the Brianza

One of the most important consequences of post‐Fordist global restructuring has been the ‘deterritorialization’ of capital and its increasing geographic expansion. Another and quite different view emphasizes the fact that capitalist activity can be organized by means of localized or territorially based systems of specialized production. In this article my purpose is to show how these two disciplinary discourses are actually not mutually exclusive. Developed local economies are not immune from concerns of deterritorialization, nor should their economic achievement gloss over the glitches that are emerging at the local level due to stiffer global competition. These two aspects become immediately apparent as I illustrate the local discourse that emerges among workshop owners within an industrial district of the Brianza in the Italian region of Lombardy. After a discussion about the origin and the characteristics of this regional economy, I illustrate by way of ethnographic examples how innovation and competitiveness within and outside this industrial district mask forms of exploitation and contradictions amidst family‐run workshops. In discursive terms, exploitation is articulated in various ways, but two in particular seem to be most recurrent in the narrative of small entrepreneurs of this region. One is the ideology of ‘hard work’ and the other, more recently heard of, is the ideology of ‘high quality product’. In the brief concluding section I will stress the point that these two discourses emerging from exploitative social relations of production are to be viewed as responses to the concerns regarding the possible deterritorialization of some factories and the increasing competition with crossboundary markets.     

Evolution and relocation in fashion-led Italian districts: evidence from two case-studies

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate about how, in advanced countries, industrial districts specialised in traditional manufacturing industries evolve as a consequence of new challenges linked to the globalization process. Using a multiple case study design, the study examines the evolution of two fashion-led Italian districts: the Montebelluna sportswear system and the Vibrata-Tordino-Vomano clothing district. Our findings reveal that cluster firms’ ability to shift from manufacturing to other activities providing higher returns along the global value chain is key to understanding the effect of globalization and relocation processes on the cluster's long-term competitiveness. As illustrated in this study, weak learning districts are the most threatened while innovative districts are able to enact a selective process of relocation, substituting outplaced activities with more valuable ones and attracting inward investments.     

Concertation and local development

This article examines cooperative modes of regulation of local economies that in Europe increasingly take the form of concertation (partnership) – i.e. formalized agreement on common goals stated by collective actors with traditionally/potentially contrasting interests. This kind of agreement (‘pacts’) is increasingly institutionalized; ‘institutionalization’ being the process through which certain behaviours are steadily promoted, required, even made obligatory, by actors other than those putting them into effect, who demand conformity to their values and beliefs in return for making resources available. The process in question is particularly visible in EU countries, and it can be interpreted both as an opportunity to construct a model of a social Europe and as an opportunity to defend the features of this model that were subject to rapid erosion during the 1990s. Recurrent forms of partnership are: public–private and public–public partnerships; ‘regionalized’ industrial relations; ‘second–generation’ industrial districts; urban strategic planning; and territorial pacts. To order them, a typology is proposed on the basis of the dichotomy between exogenous/endogenous actors/resources. Three main constraints to an effective working of local concertation are then discussed: local presence of ‘global players’; excessive institutionalization; and lack of adequate implementation structures. Starting from the latter, some working hypotheses are proposed on a new ‘organizational population’, namely, the organizations of local development. Cet article examine les modes de régulation collectifs des économies locales, ceux–ci prenant de plus en plus souvent la forme d’une concertation (partenariat), accord formel sur des objectifs communs énoncés par un collectif d’acteurs dont les intérêts sont habituellement ou éventuellement opposés. Ce type d’accord (pacte) s’institutionnalise progressivement au travers d’un processus grâce auquel certains comportements sont toujours encouragés, demandés, voire exigés, par des acteurs qui, d’une part, ne sont pas ceux qui les appliquent et, d’autre part, réclament le respect de leurs valeurs et convictions en contrepartie de la mise à disposition de ressources. Ce processus, particulièrement évident dans les pays de l’U.E., peut s’interpréter à la fois comme une possibilité de construire un modèle d’Europe sociale et comme une chance de défendre les caractéristiques de ce modèle alors que celles–ci se sont rapidement dégradées dans les années 1990. Les formes récurrentes de partenariat sont: partenariats public–privé et public–public, liens industriels régionaux, districts industriels ‘de deuxième génération’, urbanisme stratégique et pactes territoriaux. L’article propose une typologie basée sur les dichotomies acteurs/ressources exogènes/endogènes. Il déduit ensuite les trois principales entraves à une concertation locale efficace: la présence locale de ‘joueurs de niveau international‘, un excès d’institutionnalisation et un manque de structures de mise en ?uvre appropriées. A partir de ce dernier point, sont présentées quelques hypothèses de travail sur une nouvelle ‘population organisationnelle‘, autrement dit des organisations de développement local.