Location Shooting and the Filmic Destination: Transylvanian Myths and the Post-Colonial Tourism Enterprise

In this study, we examine a contested tourism proposal in Romania, Dracula Park, and its attempts to balance the indigenously produced history of the region with the powerful myths imposed by European and American filmic and literary influences: Bram Stoker's Dracula and the ‘heritage films’ it spawned. While the project was recently announced to be abandoned, the Romanian discourse on Dracula Park offers an avenue for a post-colonial critique which we explore in the context of globalisation, place, identity and various texts of the culture industry. A film-location-tourism spectrum helps illustrate some of the issues raised in this paper. Dracula films and Dracula Park (DP) occupy a problematic spot on this continuum, as myth and history are mediated around a real Transylvania by local-global cultural intermediaries. This helps us situate the political economy of tourism in settings like post-socialist Romania. We argue that the literary-film-DP example shows tourism as a postcolonial enterprise of a globalised culture industry. This industry, of which tourism is a part, not only shapes touristic spaces in ex-colonies within the developing (lesser developed) world, but also constructs identities and heritage in peripheral spaces within the cultural coloniser's Europe.     

From local to grobal,and back

This is a case study of Vlisco, a Dutch textile printing company since 1846 that produces batik cloth for the West African consumer market. We focus on the changing status of batik cloth in West Africa and related shifts in the relations of Vlisco with its consumers and local trade partners over a period of almost two centuries. We conclude that in the long run, globalisation does not necessarily result in the transformation of authentic and locally conceived products into empty mass products, and even if it does, in time the process can change direction.     

A Tale of Two Peripheries: Real Wages in Denmark and New Zealand 1875–1939.

Abstract

Denmark achieved dramatic real wage growth after 1870, compared to other European economies and to those of the New World. The ingredients of Denmark's success are gauged by comparison with one its major competitors in the British food-products markets, New Zealand. Faster Danish productivity growth explains only part of Denmark's faster real wage growth. Open economy forces, chiefly international capital flows before 1913, and especially Danish trade union militancy around the end of World War I, influenced income distribution and especially favoured wages over property income in Denmark. Denmark's GDP per capita equalled New Zealand levels between the world wars but her real wages surged past those of New Zealand as distributional shifts favoured Denmark's wage earners.     

Modernity,space-based patriarchy and global capitalism: implications for Syrian women accountants

This paper contributes to the current literature on gender, modernity, patriarchy and accounting by bringing insights into the experiences of women accountants in Syria: an Arab and predominantly Muslim country. By doing so, this paper enhances understanding of women's interrelationship with accounting beyond the Anglo-American context that currently dominates the research agenda on gender and accounting. Face-to-face interviews with 20 women accountants were carried out in Syria in 2008. This study reveals that in the context of global capitalism and patriarchy, factors of class, alienation, tradition and economic difficulties are contributing to the subordinated role of women in society in general and in the accounting profession in particular. The increased commercialisation of the accounting profession in the Arab world, including Syria, has resulted in socio-economic hierarchies and discriminatory practices, where interviewees spoke of discrimination based on class, sex and on the knowledge held. Further, despite advances to Syrian women's access to the public space, the public space for Syrian women accountants often operates based largely on how men act in this space. Men (and socially/financially advantaged women) often occupy aspects of the public (accounting) space that are perceived to be more significant and better financially rewarded. Thus, the dichotomy of public/private spaces in this study is understood in a broader sense to incorporate the symbolic as well as spatial aspects. This paper concludes that the accounting profession's aspirations need to be challenged through critically evaluating and redefining work roles and values to ensure emancipation for women. Furthermore, in the Arab world, dominant patriarchal structures will only be challenged and changed when obstacles preventing women from enjoying their human rights and contributing fully in society are addressed and eliminated.     

China's Post-Listian Rise: Beyond Radical Globalisation Theory and the Political Economy of Neoliberal Hegemony

While China's rise has been much discussed, its meaning continues to be contested. This is true in radical international political economy, where, for example, it was the subject of (often polarised) debates between Giovanni Arrighi and David Harvey prior to Arrighi's death in 2009. This reflected a broader debate in IPE between development theory and radical globalisation analysis. The key point of contention is whether China's rise represents a challenge to or further consolidation of neoliberal hegemony on a global scale. This article critically scrutinises some of the key assumptions of the radical globalisation approach, specifically, that China represents another form of the ‘competition state’ whose development aspirations have been radically constrained by global ‘new constitutionalism’ and American monetary power so as to conform to neoliberalism. Deploying a structurationist approach to global governance and an eclectic/regulatory analysis of the Chinese state, I argue that China has challenged neoliberalism by projecting its growing power through constitutionalised global governance. In the face of (declining) American power, global constitutionalism has provided an opportunity structure that may help China consolidate its long-term strategy of consensual development. Far from anchoring ‘neoliberal hegemony’, global economic governance is increasingly central to its unravelling.     

Karaoke’s coming home: Japan’s empty orchestras in the United Kingdom

This paper examines the introduction, adaptation and popularisation of karaoke singing in the UK. Based on ethnographic field research and interviews conducted in both Japan and the UK, the paper traces the various pathways through which karaoke hardware and software were first introduced and marketed in the UK and the social contexts and entertainment venues within which karaoke has been popularised. The ‘domestication’ of karaoke in the UK is treated as a complex and multifaceted process involving both ‘cultural’ factors related to existing traditions of singing and amateur performance, notions of individual public ‘display’ and musical preferences, for example, and the ‘local’ economic and regulatory environment into which karaoke had been adapted. As a contribution to the discourse on the relationship between ‘global’ and ‘local’ forces in cultural flows, it is argued that although Japanese karaoke producers may have been successful in globalising the karaoke concept, its popularisation as a leisure activity in the UK has involved the localisation of the production, distribution and uses of karaoke hardware and software.     

The Profit–Investment Nexus in an Era of Financialisation,Globalisation and Monopolisation: A Profit-Centred Perspective

ABSTRACT

During recent decades, the link between profits and domestic investment has weakened in the largest high-income economies. In this article, we explore this attenuation of the profit–investment nexus through a profit-centred perspective. Focusing on the impact of the origins and uses of profits, we study the investment behaviour of non-financial corporations in relation to their profits at the macro level since 1970, a period marked by financialisation, globalisation and, more recently, monopolisation. We contrast and discuss four competing hypothese—the revenge of the rentiers, the financial turn of accumulation, globalisation and monopolisation—and related stylised facts for France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.     

From the ‘Hindu rate of growth’ to ‘unstoppable India’: has the services sector played a role?

India shifted from an import substitution growth strategy (ISS) to an export-led-growth strategy (ELGS) in July 1991. Consequently, liberalisation was promulgated not only in the industrial sector but in the services sector too in the post-1991 period. ‘services-led-growth strategy’ – a concomitant of ELGS – has led to an improvement in the revealed comparative advantage in the export of commercial services during the period 1990–2005. Furthermore, the openness of services and foreign direct investment in services have emerged as important determinants of gross domestic product growth during the period 1995–2005. The author therefore argues that if ISS led to the ‘Hindu rate of growth’ in the first three decades of planning, it is the services-led growth which has made ‘India unstoppable’ on the economic front.     

Beer,brewing, and business history

Abstract

This editorial introduces the eight articles in the special issue on ‘Beer, brewing and business history’. Following the BEERONOMICS conference held at the University of York, 2013, and the subsequent approval of the editorial board of Business History, we received many submissions discussing beer, brewing, and their importance to business history (broadly defined). In this editorial we provide a brief overview of the historical development of beer and brewing; explain the appeal to business historians of the principal themes which have emerged in the historiography of this industry, and provide a short introduction to the articles accepted for publication in this special issue.     

The non-globalisation of modern food retailing: the case of the failed Coop Norden merger

ABSTRACT

By discussing the creation and subsequent failure of Coop Norden, set up by the Scandinavian consumer co-operatives in 2002 as a common wholesale and food retail enterprise, this article provides insights into the nature of the Scandinavian food retail sector and co-operative enterprises in an era of globalisation. The article combines recent research on the globalisation of retailing with the academic literature on the economic position and development of consumer co-operative enterprises. The article concludes that the failure of Coop Norden can be seen as the natural consequence of two inherent problems: 1. A flawed vision among co-operative managers on how globalisation would impact retailing and 2. A misalignment between Danish, Norwegian and Swedish co-operative agendas. The article is based on comprehensive studies of the internal co-operative archives in Denmark and Norway.