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1 – 10 of over 23000Colin Charles Williams and Slavko Bezeredi
To transcend the long-standing debate regarding whether workers are driven into the informal economy by either their involuntary “exclusion” or voluntary “exit” from the formal…
Abstract
Purpose
To transcend the long-standing debate regarding whether workers are driven into the informal economy by either their involuntary “exclusion” or voluntary “exit” from the formal economy, the purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market composed of an exit-driven “upper tier” and an exclusion-driven “lower-tier” of informal workers, and to explore its policy implications.
Design/methodology/approach
To do so, data are reported from a 2015 survey of the informal economy conducted in South-East Europe involving 6,019 face-to-face interviews in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR Macedonia.
Findings
Identifying a dual informal labour market with three exit-driven informal workers for every exclusion-driven informal worker, a multinomial logit regression analysis reveals that, compared to the exclusion-driven “lower tier”, the exit-driven “upper tier” is significantly more likely to be populated by the formally employed, retired and those not struggling financially. Participation is not affected by the perceived severity of penalties and likely risks of detection, but relative to those in the exclusion-driven “lower tier”, there is a significant correlation between those doing so for exit rationales and their lack of both horizontal trust and vertical trust in formal institutions.
Practical implications
The outcome is a call to transcend the conventional deterrence approach of increasing the penalties and risks of detection. Instead, to tackle those driven by exit rationales, tackling both the lack of horizontal trust that other citizens are operating in a compliant manner and the lack of vertical trust in formal institutions is advocated. To tackle exclusion-driven informal workers, meanwhile, a focus upon the macro-level economic and social conditions which lead to their participation is required.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to empirically evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market and to evaluate its policy implications.
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Mehdi Rasouli Ghahroudi, Seyed Hossein Chabok and Kieran M. Conroy
This study aims to focus on dual embeddedness as an important channel through which foreign subsidiaries access and share valuable and idiosyncratic knowledge within the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to focus on dual embeddedness as an important channel through which foreign subsidiaries access and share valuable and idiosyncratic knowledge within the multinational corporation (MNC). The authors examine the dual embeddedness challenges of foreign subsidiaries based in the context of Iran as a transitional market.
Design/methodology/approach
The final sample includes 144 active foreign subsidiaries in Iran from across a broad range of industries. A structured questionnaire was distributed to firms and structural equation modeling was adopted to analyze the results.
Findings
The findings reveal how building external embeddedness in an environment with potentially poor access to valuable knowledge, and risk of knowledge leakage impacts the subsidiary’s ability to subsequently transfer this knowledge within the MNC. The authors identify the significance of absorptive capacity as a way for the subsidiary to access knowledge from and share knowledge with firms in the local market.
Originality/value
Departing from existing work on subsidiary embeddedness in developed markets, the authors reveal how competence creating subsidiaries manage dual embeddedness and knowledge transfer in transition economies that are low in knowledge stocks. The authors unpack how subsidiary absorptive capacity enables access to local knowledge in a transitional market and increases reverse knowledge transfer in the MNC. In doing so, the authors answer calls for work on the dynamic and complementary relationships that exists between subsidiary dual embeddedness, absorptive capacity and knowledge sourcing in less open markets. Focusing on Iran as a transitional economy, this study provides greater contextual nuance to the extant literature on subsidiary dual embeddedness.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new theoretical framework called the “extended dual economy model”. Based on the seminal work of Lewis (2014), the author uses it to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new theoretical framework called the “extended dual economy model”. Based on the seminal work of Lewis (2014), the author uses it to explain the sectoral specialisation of home countries and their firms and MNEs.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is multi-disciplinary and entirely conceptual, with cool ideas but very few numbers and equations.
Findings
Emerging economies exhibit a “duality” in their economic structure that reflects itself in two largely different sets of location (L) characteristics. They are simultaneously home to both “traditional” sectors, which are resource and labour intensive, as well as “modern” sectors, which are knowledge and capital intensive, each of which can be analysed as having two sub-economies. These different sets of location advantages shape the firm-specific advantages of EMNEs and their FDI.
Research limitations/implications
This analysis helps to underline what shapes the ability of home countries to “emerge”, and the ability of their firms to grow and their MNEs to become internationally competitive. Few EMNEs can thrive in international markets without concurrent growth in their domestic markets. Maintaining the appropriate location assets to optimally support both types of sectors is costly. Each type of sub-economy requires different kinds of support sectors, infrastructure and policies, with little overlap. Weaknesses in its home country L advantages hinder the long-term competitiveness of their EMNEs.
Practical implications
Few EMNEs can thrive in international markets without concurrent growth in their domestic markets. Weaknesses in its home country L advantages hinder the long-term competitiveness of their EMNEs.
Originality/value
The extension of the Lewisian dual economy model allows a number of interesting new insights because it allows us to consider firms, non-firms, informality and the bottlenecks associated with promoting knowledge-intensive sectors in a globalised world. It emphasises structural change, and the need to manage pathways and effectively channel growth.
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Yongqin Wang and Xin Gao
This paper studies the political economy of the endogenous urban–rural divide in two dimensions: labor market and provision of public goods.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper studies the political economy of the endogenous urban–rural divide in two dimensions: labor market and provision of public goods.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper gives a dual-sector model endogenously depending on the consumption of public goods (club goods), the number of rural–urban migrants and the tax rate (transfer payments).
Findings
According to the research findings in this paper, the constraints on the participation of rural residents portray the rural residents' bargaining power, and in the game between the urban elites and the rural residents, tax rates depend on the preferences of the urban elites and the constraints urban elites and the rural residents jointly face. Therefore, the urban elites have to set tax rates deviating from the most preferred ones. The model in this paper can explain a series of empirical findings and yield new theoretical findings for empirical testing.
Originality/value
Significantly, the paper finds that the increase in agricultural productivity will lead to industrialization, accompanied by the disintegration of the dual-sector model. However, though the increase in industrial productivity can accelerate industrialization, it will further expand the urban–rural divide.
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Gender divisions are embedded in and essential to the structure of capitalist production. While most men and women in the United States both now work for wages, they rarely work…
Abstract
Gender divisions are embedded in and essential to the structure of capitalist production. While most men and women in the United States both now work for wages, they rarely work together. Gender segregation has been identified as one of the major issues of the earnings gap between men and women. An explanation of the forces responsible for this has been difficult to achieve. Most theories fail to consider the contribution of demand‐side factors to gender segregation. Neo‐Marxist analysis of labour market segmentation and theories of the dual economy have provided new frameworks for investigating these structural or demand‐side features of industrial organisation. The pattern of blue‐collar segregation in US manufacturing industries is examined drawing on these theories. Employment data from the US census is used to identify how the levels of blue‐collar segregation in manufacturing industries are influenced by the industry's location within the core or peripheral sector of the US economy. Many of segregation's proposed remedies stress the role of supply‐side factors. These strategies focus attention almost exclusively on male and female workers and ignore the structure of the workplace. Strategies that ignore the dualistic nature of the US economy offer only partial solutions and may be counter‐productive. If forced to eliminate or reduce segmentation, employers may simply restructure their labour processes in a way that undermines rather than contributes to gender inequality. It is apparent that the pursuit of gender equality in the workplace is intrinsically related to and dependent on the broader efforts of workers to achieve greater control over production, both at the workplace and in the economy as a whole.
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Reveals that in recent years, four models of northern Canadian aboriginal (Indian, Inuit and Métis) communities have been persuasive guides to shaping development strategies. Here…
Abstract
Reveals that in recent years, four models of northern Canadian aboriginal (Indian, Inuit and Métis) communities have been persuasive guides to shaping development strategies. Here they are called the dual economy model, the political economy model, the mixed economy model, and the cultural model. States that each model provides a useful, but partial description and analysis of how northern communities work and that in contrast, aboriginal leaders have advocated a comprehensive approach to development, or simultaneous political, economic and cultural development. Posits that because each dominant model is partial, initiatives launched from any one perspective are likely to satisfy only a part of local development goals. Concludes that model builders should find new ways to integrate the strengths of their respective concepts and create flexible tools needed for comprehensive development.
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Colin C. Williams, Ioana Alexandra Horodnic and Jan Windebank
To transcend the current debates about whether participation in the informal sector is a result of informal workers “exclusion” or their voluntary “exit” from the formal sector…
Abstract
Purpose
To transcend the current debates about whether participation in the informal sector is a result of informal workers “exclusion” or their voluntary “exit” from the formal sector, the purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate the existence of a dual informal labour market composed of an exit-driven “upper tier” and exclusion-driven “lower-tier” of informal workers.
Design/methodology/approach
To do this, data from a 2013 Eurobarometer survey involving 27,563 face-to-face interviews across the European Union is reported.
Findings
The finding is that in the European Union, there is a dual informal labour market with those participating in the informal sector due to their exclusion from the formal sector being half the number of those doing so to voluntarily exit the formal sector. Using a logistic regression analysis, the exclusion-driven “lower tier” is identified as significantly more likely to be populated by the unemployed and those living in East-Central Europe and the exit-driven “upper tier” by those with few financial difficulties and living in Nordic nations.
Research limitations/implications
The results reveal the need not only to transcend either/or debates about whether participants in the informal sector are universally exclusion-or exit-driven, and to adopt a both/and approach that recognises a dual informal labour market composed of an exit-driven upper tier and exclusion-driven lower tier, but also for wider research on the relative sizes of these two tiers in individual countries and other global regions, along with which groups populate these tiers.
Originality/value
This is the first evaluation of the internal dualism of the informal sector in the European Union.
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John Kenneth Galbraith’s social balance theory is an important theme in many of his books, particularly The Affluent Society, The New Industrial State, and Economics and the…
Abstract
John Kenneth Galbraith’s social balance theory is an important theme in many of his books, particularly The Affluent Society, The New Industrial State, and Economics and the Public Purpose. Galbraith’s social balance theory states that forces driving private consumption in an industrial society will outpace the development and provision of public goods and services with consequences on the well-being of society (Stanfield, 1996, p. 49). The theory leads to several questions: (1) What is the specific relationship between private and public goods and consumption? (2) What is optimized with social balancing? (3) Does the relationship between private and public goods change over time? and (4) How do we evaluate the types of public goods we need? This chapter explores these questions and examines the type of public goods we need today to serve our communities better. For example, police presence and activities in many minority communities are now viewed negatively, as evidenced by the “defund the police” movement. Conversely, some have advocated for greater public spending on community mental health programs and new initiatives to deal with racism in communities.
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Pavlos Mourdoukoutas and Panos Mourdoukoutas
Crosscurrents between globalization and localization have created two world industry segments, an open highly competitive global industry, and a closed highly localized industry…
Abstract
Crosscurrents between globalization and localization have created two world industry segments, an open highly competitive global industry, and a closed highly localized industry. Searching for competitive advantage in this new market environment, global manufacturers are becoming more like local service providers by executing a dual strategy: a global cost leadership strategy and a local product differentiation strategy. To achieve global cost leadership, manufacturers cooperate with their competitors to reach economies of scale and reduce costs. To achieve local product differentiation, manufacturers compete with their global partners by cooperating with local service providers to differentiate their offerings. This trend is analyzed to suggest two interdependent mechanisms for building successful bundling strategies. The competitiveness of a bundle that brings together global products and local services depends upon the degree of bundle localization. Sustainable bundling strategies should be treated as bundles of international business relationships.
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