This open access book provides a glimpse into the Japanese management technique known as "Kaizen," and the ways it has been disseminated around the developing world. The novelty of this book is three-fold: it provides a contextualized view of the mechanisms of initiatives implementing Kaizen in developing countries; compared with productivity studies, it places the relationship between workers and managers at the center of inquiry, reflecting the intent of SDG8 concerning decent work and economic growth; and it provides an overview of the heterogeneity of Kaizen in terms of geography and firm size. This book explores how improving management techniques can support firms' productivity and quality. Given its wide range of case studies from across Africa, Asia and Latin America, this book will be of value to scholars, policymakers and advocates of sustainable development alike.

The labour movement in Lebanon: Power on hold narrates the history of the Lebanese labour movement from the early twentieth century to today. Bou Khater demonstrates that trade unionism in the country has largely been a failure, for reasons including state interference, tactical co-optation, and the strategic use of sectarianism by an oligarchic elite, together with the structural weakness of a service-based laissez-faire economy. Drawing on a vast body of Arabic-language primary sources and difficult-to-access archives, the book's conclusions are significant not only for trade unionism, but also for new forms of workers' organisations and social movements in Lebanon and beyond. The Lebanese case study presented here holds significant implications for the wider Arab world and for comparative studies of labour. This authoritative history of the labour movement in Lebanon is vital reading for scholars of trade unionism, Lebanese politics, and political economy. -- .

First published in 1931, this book contains the text of the inaugural lecture delivered that year by John Hilton upon his appointment to the Montague Burton Professorship of Industrial Relations in the University of Cambridge. Hilton, who was the first to occupy the Montague Burton Chair, discusses the state of industry as the 'victim' of external forces and the important role of the relationship between employees and employers. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of the study of industrial relations and the state of industry in inter-war Britain.

Violence, deception, fraud and abuse have always been commonplace occurrences for migrants, not only in their final country of destination but also in their countries of origin and countries of transit. In today's world, the link between mobility and security issues is ever-increasing. Acknowledging this, how can we work to protect and improve migrants' rights? Is the protection for migrants offered by the EU sufficient as-is, or is a more integrated approach that requires greater cooperation from migrants' country of origin called for? What role can the private sector play in all of this? In this book, Borraccetti brings together contributions that analyse how migrant exploitation can be combatted. All essays focus on the protection and promotion of human rights and pay particular attention to the rights of children and other vulnerable people.

Bringing together ethnographic case studies of industrial labor from different parts of the world, Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism explores the increasing casualization of workforces and the weakening power of organized labor. This division owes much to state policies and is reflected in local understandings of class. By exploring this relationship, these essays question the claim that neoliberal ideology has become the new 'commonsense' of our times and suggest various propositions about the conditions that create employment regimes based on flexible labor.

This book broadens the research on the underworld of precarious and not-represented workers, through a selection of original case studies from across the globe written by leading experts. The book unveils the working conditions affecting this vast labour force that is so important to capital accumulation in the global age. It also helps us to understand the forms and processes of organization that these groups of workers, almost on an everyday basis, put in place to improve their working conditions and lived experiences.

Economic Welfare presents an important collection of leading writings in the fields of policy evaluation. The volume focuses on the conceptual issues behind welfare economics, drawing upon contributions from economics, moral philosophy and social philosophy. The selected readings are designed to present the case both for and against extant approaches to economic welfare. Modern welfare economics comprises three contrasting approaches. Pure Paretianism focuses on cases where everyone is made better off or worse off. This approach commands broad (although not universal) assent but does not apply to most real world choices. Cost-benefit analysis does most of the practical work for economic policy evaluation, but does not offer fully sound foundations. Newer approaches treat economic welfare as either cardinal or measurable in nature, often dropping the traditional strictures against interpersonal utility comparisons. This collection brings together these three approaches, examines their strengths and weaknesses and asks whether they share a common future. Economic Welfare will provide an indispensable reference source for students, academics and practitioners.

The idea of a moral economy has been explored and assessed in numerous disciplines. The anthropological studies in this volume provide a new perspective to this idea by showing how the relations of workers, employees and employers, and of firms, families and households are interwoven with local notions of moralities. From concepts of individual autonomy, kinship obligations, to ways of expressing mutuality or creativity, moral values exert an unrealized influence, and these often produce more consent than resistance or outrage.

This book showcases issues of work and employment in contemporary India through a critical lens, serving as a systematic, scholarly and rigorous resource which provides an alternate view to the glowing metanarrative of the subcontinent's ongoing economic growth in today's globalized world. Critical approaches ensure that divergent and marginalized voices are highlighted, promoting a more measured perspective of entrenched standpoints. In casting social reality differently, a quest for solutions that reshape current dynamics is triggered. The volume spans five thematic areas, subsuming a range of economic sectors. India is a pre-eminent destination for offshoring, underscoring the relevance of global production networks (Theme 1). Yet, the creation of jobs has not transformed employment patterns in the country but rather accentuated informalization and casualization (Theme 2). Indeed, even India's ICT-related sectors, perceived as mascots of modernity and vehicles for upward mobility, raise questions about the extent of social upgrading (Theme 3). Nonetheless, these various developments have not been accompanied by collective action - instead, there is growing evidence of diminished pluralistic employment relations strategies (Theme 4). Emergent concerns about work and employment such as gestational surrogacy and expatriate experiences attest to the evolving complexities associated with offshoring (Theme 5).

This book examines the transition, transformation and future of the informal sector, informal work and informal workers in India from the perspectives of development economics as well as those of international organisations. Though the informal sector has a long tradition in India, it has been transformed in the wake of neoliberal economic policy. The sector took on new prominence in the 1980s, and has since grown much stronger and established itself as the country's dominant sector. Several reports on the informal sector appeared during this period, and the status of the sector in India is positioned in the context of this international scenario. The major debate concerns the definition of this sector. While international labour statisticians had suggested a mechanism of definition and measurement of the sector, Indian official statistics took a different approach. The book analytically elaborates the different definitions and measurement controversies in different countries and contextualises the official Indian position. While deliberating on the size, contribution, productivity, and potential of the informal sector, the heterogeneity and decomposition of the sector with respect to these aspects are also suggested. The book develops a political economic interpretation of the historical transition of the informal sector in India, employing heterodox economics as a theoretical basis, with a critical note on standard neoclassical economic analysis. The final part of the book focuses on understanding the development of capitalism in the country under neoliberalism, as that development is crucial to understanding the informal sector in any country, and particularly in India. In the current context, the volume will be of great relevance to researchers, non-government organizations, policy makers and international organisations working on the topic.

***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021*** In this sharp intervention, authors Luci Cavallero and Veronica Gago defiantly develop a feminist understanding of debt, showing its impact on women and members of the LGBTQ+ community and examining the relationship between debt and social reproduction. Exploring the link between financial activity and the rise of conservative forces in Latin America, the book demonstrates that debt is intimately linked to gendered violence and patriarchal notions of the family. Yet, rather than seeing these forces as insurmountable, the authors also show ways in which debt can be resisted, drawing on concrete experiences and practices from Latin America and around the world. Featuring interviews with women in Argentina and Brazil, the book reveals the real-life impact of debt and how it falls mainly on the shoulders of women, from the household to the wider effects of national debt and austerity. However, through discussions around experiences of work, prisons, domestic labour, agriculture, family, abortion and housing, a narrative of resistance emerges. Translated by Liz Mason-Deese.

This book examines Gunnar Myrdal's analysis of poverty in relation to Sweden, the United States, South Asia, and the international economy. The chapters investigate Mrydal's methodological development and his focus on the principle of circular and cummulative causation, dynamic economic analysis, institutional frameworks, value premises, and social engineering. The challenge of world poverty, the international dimension of poverty, and the legacy of The American Dilemma and Asian Drama are also discussed. This book aims to explore the development of Myrdal's analysis of poverty during his life. It will be relevant to students and academics interested in the history of economic thought, development economics, the political economy, and labor economics.

This book employs a variety of perspectives such as Institutional, Social Democratic, Marxist, Gender and Informal, Biblical and Dalit, to critically examine the impact of neo-liberal globalisation on both formal and informal sectors of the labour market and the industrial relations system. The narratives not only interrogate current institutions and paradigms, but also outline future developments.

The rapid rise in the earnings of top executives is a distinctive feature of modern capitalism. This important two volume collection presents some of the most influential published theoretical and empirical papers on executive compensation. Topics include: Theoretical Foundations of Executive Pay; Executive Compensation and Company Performance; Relative Performance Evaluation; Determinants of Executive Compensation; The Effects of CEO Pay; Accounting Measures in Executive Contracts; CEO Turnover; CEO Pay Internationally; Economic Environments and Executive Pay. The Economics of Executive Compensation draws together a wide range of literature and will be an essential reference guide for students, researchers and practioners.

Though labour market regulations have been blamed for the poor economic performance of many developing countries, the evidence on which this argument rests is weak. Rather than constraining economic development, labour market institutions, including the laws that regulate the labour market, are important for both economic growth and the well-being of the workforce. Through a survey of different labour market institutions in developing countries, this book reaffirms the importance of labour market institutions in this era of globalization.

This book addresses the complicated question of how markets and consumption create the possibilities for cross-cultural exchanges and the multicultural pleasures of omnivorous consumption, whilst at the same time building new boundaries and distinctions, paving the way for new exploitative relationships, and initiating novel modes of status and capital accumulation. The contributors identify that the divide between the economic and ethical dimensions of globalisation has never seemed in sharper relief. With the workings of global markets at odds with fostering cosmopolitan social change, this collection addresses the question of whether we should assume that market logics and consumptive practices conflict with cosmopolitan agendas. It also explores whether the imperatives of economic globalisation and individual consumption practices are opposed to cosmopolitan prospects for global solidarities. Cosmopolitanism, Markets and Consumption will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including in the social sciences, businesses and marketing studies.

This book investigates the success story of the fast fashion industry-mainly owned by Chinese migrants-in Prato, Italy. It outlines how Prato has become the center of a value chain stretching from suppliers in China and Turkey all the way to buyers in Europe. Despite this, a policy attacking Chinese entrepreneurship has been devised and implemented in Prato. This volume analyzes said policy against the crisis of Prato's textile industry. Based on the author's 15 years of fieldwork in Prato, the book sheds light on the entangled processes of city making and the restructuring processes linked to capital accumulation by tackling issues of governance, territory, migration, division of labor, labor mobility, housing, and human rights.

This text provides an overview and concise introduction to labor relations in Europe. The author seeks to transcend nationalism in labor relations by focusing his discussion and analysis on the continent as a whole and on groups of countries. The national focus is to some extent given up, not for a concentration on differences within nations, but in favor of a discussion of common European developments. European labor relations have a number of basic features in common, not only in collective bargaining and conflict, but also in worker participation and in the role of national governments. And, in a number of ways, these features are strikingly different from the labor relations model seen in the United States. The text, therefore, offers an illuminating analysis of commonalities and differences within European labor relations, as well as between the United States and Europe.

"The author has done a service to this line of study by collating and analysing a novel dataset in a manner that is going to be of use for researchers of the labour market in India, a subject in need of critical enquiry."- Shanti Chakravarty, Professor of Economics, Bangor University, Wales, UK This book deconstructs the dynamics of the job market in an emerging economy (India) that has vast capital resources, addressing a key concern in relation to inequality in the labour market by social groups. The author examines the changing impact of caste on employment opportunity using two sets of large databases, and extends this analysis into religious affiliation and gender. The findings in this book will be of importance to those working in both research and policy, and makes an important contribution through addressing the decomposition of inequality based on disparity and discrimination.

In 1989, Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality" to describe the interdependent and overlapping systems of discrimination and disadvantage that result from the interconnected nature of social categorizations. These categories include, but are not limited to, disability, gender identity, nationality, race, and socioeconomic class. In recent years, we have witnessed increased societal interest in the notion of equal economic, political, and social rights. This has commonly manifested in a desire for equality of opportunity (i.e., social justice). This book applies an intersectional approach to examine a specific facet of equality - namely, the presence and magnitude of wage discrimination in the U.S. labor market. This book accomplishes several objectives. It introduces intersectional analysis for readers who are unfamiliar with the topic. The book identifies intersectional wage discrimination for a large number of worker groups that are defined by multiple intersecting identities (i.e., the personal characteristics of Hispanic ethnicity, nativity, race, and sex). It also documents variation in wage differentials both between worker groups (i.e., contemporaneously) and within groups (i.e., intertemporally). Finally, given the policy relevance of our topic, it is fitting that the final chapter is devoted to corresponding conclusions.

The Socialist Industrial State (1976) examines the state-socialist system, taking as the central example the Soviet Union - where the goals and values of Marxism-Leninism and the particular institutions, the form of economy and polity, were first adopted and developed. It then considers the historical developments, differences in culture, the level of economic development and the political processes of different state-socialist countries around the globe.

The rise of the institutionalist and evolutionary approaches in economics has posed a serious intellectual challenge to the dominant neo-classical paradigm. This book draws together leading scholars in the fields of institutional and evolutionary economics who apply cutting-edge research to one of the most controversial issues of our day, namely, the role of the state.The authors offer a sound methodological guide to the research in this fast-evolving area of economics. They provide a firm theoretical foundation for the role of the state and review the history of policy making. They also use country studies to reinforce their approach, including the role of the state in the Asian Crisis, the current debate on state reform in Japan, public administration in Central and Eastern Europe and the practice of state reform in Brazil. This book will inspire readers to reassess their views on the role of the state and state reform.

This book provides a political, economic, and sociological investigation of how neoliberalism shapes 'working class capacities,' or the power of the working class to organize and struggle for its collective interests. Efe Can Gurcan and Berk Mete discuss the global importance of the labor question as it pertains to Turkey. They apply the main theoretical framework of the combined and uneven development of class capacities to Turkish trade unionism. They also address Turkey's recent history of neoliberalization and its repercussions for class capacities, as mediated by national regulations, conservative unionism, and Islamic social assistance networks. Finally, the authors explore how neoliberalism generates intra-class fragmentation through public regulatory mechanisms and cultural differentiation in the sphere of social unionism.

This book is an important and original account of life in the new lean production workplace - the car industry where it all began. It brings together the two emblematic features of the 20th century: a working class meant to topple the social order, and a product that largely provided the developmental model of that same order. This book is neither a retrospective assessment nor a prediction for the future: it reveals what has changed and what has remained the same, in a workplace that remains a major part of the makeup of our society.