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Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Evaluates the interplay between market forces and political realities as the economies of Europe become part of a new global order. Capital is becoming more mobile and business increasingly international and borderless. Modern management seek opportunities to reduce costs of production. The transnational firm (TNC), a globally integrated organizational network, has emerged in this global search for low‐cost production bases. Consequently the realm of European economic policy analysis is now very much couched within a political economy dimension which is determining the direction of economic activity at the global level with ramifications for the European economy and its nation‐states. The hallmarks of that political dimension include the interrelationships between sovereign governments and the transnational corporations and the creation of geo‐political entities like the European Union. Impelled by global competition and the power of business, the drive towards European integration has furnished much‐needed debate on the effectiveness of indigenous government policies on their respective economies and on the relatively greater impact of modern corporations on the economy.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the contradictory trends in the development of the modern world economic system. The relevance of the topic is due to the multifaceted and ambiguous nature of regionalization, glocalization and fragmentation tendencies formed as the most important trends in the crisis of globalism.

Based on the classical methods of historical and functional analysis, system approach and comparative studies, the authors realized the research potential of modern methodological tools, alternative forecasting methods and comparative modeling, as well as special methods of economic globalistics and global political economy. Heuristic possibilities of the methodological–theoretical concept of glocalization of international economic relations are used.

New directions and opportunities for attaining regional and global geo-economic leadership are revealed and demonstrated. It is justified that glocalization does not lead to economic isolation in previously known historical forms but to priority realization of the interests of local economic entities included in the processes of globalization and subordinated to its patterns. Glocalization causes an increase in the role of local factors in the global development of the society, in particular of the global economy.

It is established that the so-called equilibrium zones (enjoying the advantages of an intermediary role in the interrelationships of large areas of the world economy, which are headed by geo-economic leaders) possess the potential for novelty in the dynamics of a globalizing economy. The article predicts the formation of a multidimensional and multilevel geo-economic multipolarity due to the reshaping of the global system of leadership in the world economy and due to the contradictory competitive relationships of its main centers.

The purpose of this study is to explain the discipline of political economy in terms of the theory of conflict and conflict resolution on social matters. Such a theory arises substantively from the generalized and unique methodological worldview of unity of knowledge found in the Islamic epistemological case.

This paper simply uses this epistemic background without dwelling in details of the Islamic methodological worldview of unity of knowledge. Among the central social issues examined in this paper is that of preservation of peace in terms of pressing issues that complement with the concept of well-being.

The imminent study of political economy of socioeconomic development and United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is explained as a broader concept of peace as organic relational balance between the good and true pursuits of life in terms of common global well-being. Within this purview, analytical examination is made of various theoretical precepts. Within the same goal of peaceful coexistence and global conflict resolution, the official stand of Malaysia in global peace is enunciated.

The paper conveys a critical conceptual idea to debate the scope and approach of political economy of peace, development and law matters. The results of the approach used in this study constitute a major contribution of this paper to scholarship in general and acts as a critique of developmental thought of political economy of peace and law.

This article aims to provide a critical understanding of contextual issues surrounding international business from a political economy of communication perspective.

The approach is based in classical dialectics and proceeds from a Marxian perspective. It includes a literature review of major theorists in political economy of communication and an analysis of present institutional relationships that frame international business in the context of corporatism.

The main argument is that current practices that dominate international business can no longer be considered as any kind of capitalism and that political economy of communication is necessary for comprehending this system. Current business practices are a form of corporatism in which ownership is separated from control, business is separated from industry, and the idea of a “going concern” is subject to “overriding concerns”. To understand the implications of these factors, political economy of communication needs new theories of value, labour, mediation, and meaning.

The work is limited by the current pace of change, by alternative, non‐Marxist definitions of capitalism which are not taken into account here, and by the variegated nature of global business practices. The work is limited to dominant practices and definitive relationships.

The paper provides a useful perspective for understanding the future direction of international business, specifically in terms of communication, culture, and understandings of value.

This paper offers an alternative, non‐capitalistic view of “globalisation” within a Marxist framework and proposes a new theoretical and analytical synthesis for political economy of communication.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing debate on governance, accountability, transparency and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the mining sector of a developing country context. It examines the reporting practices of the two largest transnational gold-mining companies in Tanzania in order to draw attention to the role played by local government regulations and advocacy and campaigning by nationally organised non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with respect to promoting corporate social reporting practices.

The paper takes a political economy perspective to consider the serious implications of the neo-liberal ideologies of the global capitalist economy, as manifested in Tanzania’s regulatory framework and in NGO activism, for the corporate disclosure, accountability and responsibility of transnational companies (TNCs). A qualitative field case study methodology is adopted to locate the largely unfamiliar issues of CSR in the Tanzanian mining sector within a more familiar literature on social accounting. Data for the case study were obtained from interviews and from analysis of documents such as annual reports, social responsibility reports, newspapers, NGO reports and other publicly available documents.

Analysis of interviews, press clips and NGO reports draws attention to social and environmental problems in the Tanzanian mining sector, which are arguably linked to the manifestation of the broader crisis of neo-liberal agendas. While these issues have serious impacts on local populations in the mining areas, they often remain invisible in mining companies’ social disclosures. Increasing evidence of social and environmental ills raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the regulatory frameworks, as well as the roles played by NGOs and other pressure groups in Tanzania.

By empowering local NGOs through educational, capacity building, technological and other support, NGOs’ advocacy, campaigning and networking with other civil society groups can play a pivotal role in encouraging corporations, especially TNCs, to adopt more socially and environmentally responsible business practices and to adhere to international and local standards, which in turn may help to improve the lives of many poor people living in developing countries in general, and Tanzania in particular.

This paper contributes insights from gold-mining activities in Tanzania to the existing literature on CSR in the mining sector. It also contributes to political economy theory by locating CSR reporting within the socio-political and regulatory context in which mining operations take place in Tanzania. It is argued that, for CSR reporting to be effective, robust regulations and enforcement and stronger political pressure must be put in place.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interaction between the economic and political imperatives of new monetarism. The breakdown of the global derivatives markets, which came into the spotlight during the 2008/2009 global debt crisis, brought up the issue of trust. The matter at hand is the loss of trust in investors' ability to make informed decisions, but trust in the self‐regulating capacity of open markets has also been seriously shaken.

Relying on Roche and McKee's analysis of the global financial crisis, the author emphasizes that new monetarism is not a new paradigm, but rather a result of economic circumstances. Although the growth of financial asset prices was indeed partly a result of the liberalization of financial markets, the decisive factor is to be found in the creation of new financial instruments. On the one hand, derivatives have drastically increased the “investment power” or “purchasing power” of money. However, on the other hand, derivatives are a form of under‐appreciated liquidity that creates bubble assets.

Over the last two decades, the value of global financial assets has grown much faster than the real economy in its background, which means that in the era of new monetarism, financial markets set the tone of the real economy. Consequently, in the eyes of investors, the crucial term becomes “liquidity”, rather than “real economy”. As disinflation multiplied the value of financial assets, central banks progressively lost control of money. Players in financial markets that had increasing trust in cheap money started to introduce new forms of money, which allowed them to create liquidity, independently of the central bank. It has been shown that the quantity and cost of money available for investment can be frozen up to a point where it threatens the global financial system.

Networks for promoting social responsibility of the corporate sector, which more and more tightly cover our small planet, wish to make transparent the connections between corporate leaders, politicians and organizations to which they are connected. Their members conduct research with the aim of making the invisible power of money visible.

New financial democracy in the post‐modern era presupposes financially literate citizens, which without a doubt presents a challenge for education systems, which will evidently have to incorporate a new, crucial form of literacy, in addition to linguistic, mathematical and computer literacy – financial literacy.

One cynic has speculated that years hence people will look back and be forced to conclude that ‘money laundering was one of the greatest problems facing mankind towards the end of the second millennium’. This would be true of lawyers, politicians, economists, sociologists and many others who have sought to examine the problem, each from their own viewpoint. Yet, the persis‐tently non‐definable trend of globalisation has seemingly demonstrated that uni‐causal or uni‐disciplinary explanations of change in the international arena tend to yield unilateral perspectives on problems, solutions to which are subsequently limited in scope.

Following Braudel’s conceptualization of capitalism and Arrighi’s periodization of systemic cycles of accumulation, the authors focus on the patterns of recurrence of financial expansions enabling capitalism to revitalize itself through crisis; in this, crisis is considered in both aspects ‐ crisis‐as‐restructuring and crisis‐as‐rupture. The ways in whichfinance aided by the blocks of governmental and business agencies in the present stage affects investment and business cycles result in a progressive increase of inequality between rich and poor countries, as well as inequality within the most developed countries. The authors tackle the crisis phenomenon through a genealogical analysis of the formation, consolidation and disintegration of the successive regimes of accumulation on a world scale through which the capital economy expands. They furthermore examine the crisis of capitalist accumulation through the relation of money and the state, which leads them to the field of debates on the changed relationship between the global economy and the national state. However, the crisis is also marked by a milestone which, despite dangers and pitfalls, opens up endless possibilities. They end the paper with a critique of the politics of money and advocate a socially responsible finance management, which will pave the way for a structure of society in which humanity will exist as an end in itself, rather than as a resource for the accumulation of money.

This paper explores the vocational training of construction workers in Guangdong Province of China and identifies its position in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation.

The paper reviews construction vocational education and training (VET) of major political economies to develop a theoretical framework that guides an in-depth case study of Guangdong. Document analysis, field trip observations, meetings and semi-structured interviews were combined to explore the political-economic environment, political stakeholders and quality assurance mechanisms of industrial training in Guangdong's construction sector. The findings were compared with construction VET of other economies reported in the literature.

Construction training in Guangdong is deeply rooted in the local history and culture, under strong dominance of the state, while continually evolves to respond to the fluid market and therefore can be conceptualised as “market-in-state”. The political stakeholders are embedded within the state to ensure that skills policies are implemented in-line with industry policies. The differences between the training of Guangdong and its foreign counterparts are attributed to their divergent political-economic models.

As the case study was undertaken only with Guangdong, the generalisability of its findings can be improved through future research within a broader context of multiple provinces of China through both qualitative and quantitative research approaches.

Plausible foreign VET approaches are likely adaptable to the Chinese context only when conducive political-economic environment could be enabled. The findings are useful for developing countries to learn from the VET experience of industrialised economies. Construction workers' training in Guangdong can be improved by strengthening labour regulation at lower subcontracting levels and ensuring the presence of industrial associations and unions for collective training supervision.

The paper contributes to the field of construction engineering and management with a theoretical framework that guides empirical studies on the influence of the political-economic environment upon the ways political stakeholders develop and participate in construction VET. The exploration based on this framework revealed the position of the vocational training of construction workers in Guangdong in the global political-economic spectrum of skill formation.