Adam Smith and the division of labour: is there a difference between organisation and market?

The paper claims that, in The Wealth of Nations, the divisionof labour refers simultaneously to two different things: a socialdivision of labour and an organisational division of labour.The central point is that the organisation of work (the organisationaldivision of labour) in the firm is the logical counterpart ofthe social division of labour, and that these reflect two inseparableaspects of the process of the division of labour. Smith is thusconcerned with organisations as well as with markets, each functioningaccording to the same principle. Hence, Smith does not believethat the organisational and the social divisions of labour arefundamentally different, although he does recognise some variationbetween them and describes different states of the divisionof labour within the firm, liberal and capitalist.     

Detroit’s Municipal Bankruptcy: Racialised Geographies of Austerity

ABSTRACT

Urban geographer Jamie Peck theorises austerity urbanism as a dominant state practice of financially ‘restructuring’ the fiscal agendas of local governments in order to reduce government budget deficits in times of economic recessions. This project seeks to investigate the role of race in the context of austerity urbanism in Detroit following the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008. What is clear is that subprime lending in Detroit was explicitly a raced event. Analysis of austerity politics in Detroit demonstrates that the city is clearly spatially divided along racialised lines. Black city pensioners, former public sector employees, and ‘deliquent taxpayers’ were blamed for Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy in narratives centering on their bloated and generous benefits during the city’s financial decline. The policy outcomes of austerity programmes during the city’s financial crisis impacted racialised, poor communities, specifically the outcomes of privatising the city’s water services that led to state-sanctioned water shut-offs. This paper explores the ways in which race figures in the causes (race-based credit redlining/subprime super-inclusion lending practices) in the way the crisis was narrated to wrongly apportion blame to the racialised poor and city pensioners, and in the effects of the crisis, where water shut-offs wrought punishment on the racialised poor.     

The Political Economy of Mobility Partnerships – Structural Power in the EU's External Migration Policy

The research on European Union (EU) external relations and the EU's own official discourse frequently portray the EU as a soft power that provides its neighbourhood with good governance principles. The European Mobility Partnerships (EU MPs) can be considered the most recent manifestation of this rhetoric. Studies on EU MPs reflect a narrow understanding of power. This paper aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the power dimension inherent in the EU's external relations. It develops a neogramscian theoretical framework to challenge the rhetoric of the EU as a soft power and normative hegemon. Drawing on semi-structured expert interviews and textual analysis of documents, it seeks to reveal whether and in what ways socio-economic power dynamics shape the EU MPs. This article argues that while, at the beginning, the design of the EU MPs as a policy tool has been very much influenced by neoliberal ideas such as the market-oriented liberalisation of mobility and the flexibilisation of labour, implementation is marked by the neo-mercantilist approach of restricting immigration and maximising the efficiency of readmission. Applying a critical political economy concept of power is helpful in understanding how market forces influence EU external migration policy, transcending a narrow understanding of power.     

Going global,feeling small: an examination of managers' reactions to global restructuring in a multinational organisation

This paper is concerned with examining the reactions of managers to the process of global restructuring in a large, multinational food-processing company. Much extant research concerning globalisation has focused on the wider economic, political and social outcomes. Perhaps surprisingly, relatively little attention has been given to how globalisation is experienced inside organisations. This paper examines how country-level managers have been affected by the move to a new global structure in their organisation. We present evidence of these managers feeling disempowered by global reorganisation and of a largely negative impact on their feelings towards the organisation they work for.     

Global apparel production and sweatshop labour: can raising retail prices finance living wages?

This paper provides some empirical evidence on issues raisedby the global anti-sweatshop movement. We first consider therelationship between wage and employment growth, finding noconsistent trade-off between them. We then measure the shareof labour costs in the production of garments in the US andMexico. We find that the retail price increases necessary toabsorb the costs of raising wages substantially are small, wellwithin the range of price increases that polls suggest US consumersare willing to pay. We close by considering some implicationsof these results.     

知识经济与智力劳动者

知识经济社会的出现是智力劳动和智力劳动者产生的社会历史根源。智力劳动具有极强的资源性、创新性、独立性和全面性 ,它的产生机制是科学技术和社会的全面进步 ,特别是社会科学化、全民教育化发展的结果。随着知识经济的发展 ,智力劳动必然对传统的劳动创造价值理论提出新的问题。     

The effect of repeat restructuring charges on analysts’ forecast revisions and accuracy

The primary objective of this study is to examine the effect of prior restructuring charges on analyst forecast revisions and accuracy. We find evidence that analysts respond differently to first-time restructuring firms than to repeat restructuring firms. Analysts revise their forecasts of both one-year-ahead earnings and five-year long-term growth in earnings more negatively for first-time restructuring firms than for firms with prior charges. When we examine forecast errors in the year subsequent to the restructuring, we find that current charges complicate analysts’ earnings forecast task. We further find that the decline in analyst forecast accuracy is mitigated by prior charges within past two years.     

IMF Bank-Restructuring Efficiency Outcomes: Evidence from East Asia

We report new findings on bank efficiency in East Asian countries for the pre- and post-IMF restructuring periods. We find that bank efficiency has improved, but only to the pre-IMF intervention level, and that restructured banks are not more efficient than their unrestructured counterparts. Different restructuring measures have different effects. Bank closures are economically justified, but mergers show short-term efficiency losses. Recapitalization and reprivatization of badly performing banks lead to efficiency improvement, but also increase government ownership. Ease of entry that has allowed for more foreign bank participation results in slightly improved performance of badly performing banks.