This key new book synthesises Peter Buckley's work on ‘the global factory’ – the modern networked multinational enterprise. The role of interfirm networks, entrepreneurship and cooperation in the creation and management of global factories leads to a discussion of their governance, internal knowledge transfer strategies and performance, including their role in potentially combating societal failures. Emerging country multinationals are examined as a special case of global factories with a focus on Indian and Chinese multinationals, their involvement in tax havens and offshore financial centres, the performance and processes of their acquisition strategies – all seen as key aspects of globalisation.

This unique Handbook examines the impacts on, and responses to, economic geography explicitly from the perspective of the behaviour, mechanics, systems and experiences of different firms in various types of industries. The industry studies approach all

This book is based on the 7th ILO Social Policy Lectures, which are endowed with the ILO's Nobel Peace Prize, held in Kingston, Jamaica in December 2005. In keeping with the topics covered in the lecture series, it uses the global value chains perspective to look at how offshore outsourcing has affected the quantity and quality of jobs in the global economy. While offering an overview of the contemporary global labour market, the book examines the issue of global consolidation and industrial upgrading and its promise and perils for development. It introduces an analytical framework for linking jobs in the industrial structures of both advanced and developing economies through the dynamics of global value chains. It reviews the strategies of leading firms global retailers, branded marketers, and brand-name manufacturers and considers the conceptualisation of jobs in the global economy not by their location in particular industries or countries, but by their role in global value chains.The author argues that, given the special features of global value chains, there is a need to reconsider the contemporary notions of global corporate social responsibility and private as well as public governance

The engineering enterprise is a pillar of U.S. national and homeland security, economic vitality, and innovation. But many engineering tasks can now be performed anywhere in the world. The emergence of "offshoring"- the transfer of work from the United States to affiliated and unaffiliated entities abroad - has raised concerns about the impacts of globalization. The Offshoring of Engineering helps to answer many questions about the scope, composition, and motivation for offshoring and considers the implications for the future of U.S. engineering practice, labor markets, education, and research. This book examines trends and impacts from a broad perspective and in six specific industries - software, semiconductors, personal computer manufacturing, construction engineering and services, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals. The Offshoring of Engineering will be of great interest to engineers, engineering professors and deans, and policy makers, as well as people outside the engineering community who are concerned with sustaining and strengthening U.S. engineering capabilities in support of homeland security, economic vitality, and innovation.

Since the early 1980s, the U.S. economy has experienced a growing wage differential: high-skilled workers have claimed an increasing share of available income, while low-skilled workers have seen an absolute decline in real wages. How and why this disparity has arisen is a matter of ongoing debate among policymakers and economists. Two competing theories have emerged to explain this phenomenon, one focusing on international trade and labor market globalization as the driving force behind the devaluation of low-skill jobs, and the other focusing on the role of technological change as a catalyst for the escalation of high-skill wages. This collection brings together innovative new ideas and data sources in order to provide more satisfying alternatives to the trade versus technology debate and to assess directly the specific impact of international trade on U.S. wages. This timely volume offers a thorough appraisal of the wage distribution predicament, examining the continued effects of technology and globalization on the labor market.