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The emergence of global supply chains is closely interlinked with the erosion of the web of rules that used to regulate employment relations for most part of the 20th century. The development of GSCs facilitated the move away from a web to a patchwork of rules in employment relations and the erosion of the same web of rules contributed in turn even further to the dominance at present of GSCs as means of structuring production across the world. Against this context, there is an increasing understanding that the limitations of traditional governance approaches to labour regulation in GSCs at both national and supranational levels should be overcome in order to ensure the effectiveness of labour standards. This chapter critically assesses the regulatory approaches that have been developed in the recent years to tackle the regulation of labour standards in this context. It is argued that there is indeed some evidence of evolution in the regulation of labour standards in GSCs. This can be best described as a move from a state of regulatory vacuum to one that could be characterised as a patchwork of rules, comprising a range of private, state-led and international regulation. However, it it is far from certain whether such experimentation may lead to the emergence of a ‘web of rules’ or even an adequate patchwork of rules that is capable of dealing effectively with the challenges identified in this area.

In this concluding chapter, we draw together the various contributions presented in this volume, discuss the broader implications of our findings, and reflect on how this builds upon Willy Brown's work. The chapter examines how the patchwork of rules has been altered by new and emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of global supply chains and new forms of business. We return to the central objective of this volume of identifying and analysing the viability of various institutions for addressing these challenges and discuss how these might form the basis of a new web of rules for protecting labour standards in the future.

This chapter explores the notion of the European Social Model (ESM) and examines the EU-level social policy reforms that have taken place since the 1950s. ESM is taken to be distinct from but intimately related to the web and patchwork of rules explored in this volume. After sketching out the development of ESM since the 1950s, up to and including its near-death experience in the context of the Great Recession and the EU's turn to austerity, the chapter considers the social and political consequences of the EU's lurch to austerity as well as the consequences this might have for the web and patchwork of rules. The chapter ultimately reflects on whether another ESM might be possible in the context of the EU's response to the economic and social consequences following the onset of COVID-19, particularly in the context of the EU's Next Generation EU programme whereby the EU provides financial assistance directly to the regions worst affected by the pandemic.

This introductory chapter surveys institutional experimentation that has emerged internationally in response to the contraction of the traditional model of employment protection. Various initiatives are discussed according to the particular challenges they are designed to address: the emergence of non-standard employment contracts; increasing sources of labour supply engaging in non-standard work; intensification of exogenous pressures on the employment relationship; the growth of intermediaries that separate the management from the control of labour; and the emergence of entities that subvert the employment relationship entirely. Whereas post-war industrial relations scholars characterised the traditional regulatory model as a ‘web of rules’, we argue that nascent institutional experimentation is indicative of an emergent ‘patchwork of rules’. The identification of such experimentation is instructive for scholars, policymakers, workers’ representatives and employers seeking solutions to the contraction of the traditional regulatory model.

This chapter examines some of the demographic and socioeconomic factors, as well as cultural and institutional traditions, that help explain turnover and retention in Bulgaria. The case of Bulgaria illustrates that extant theories of turnover and retention may not be well suited to account for macroeconomic and large-scale social processes spurred by globalization. The focus here is on collective turnover at the organizational and particularly at upper levels of analysis (e.g., industry, region), and the authors emphasize four factors that they believe jointly contribute to the high levels of turnover in the country, namely (1) globalization processes affecting the country’s demography (i.e., mass international migration), (2) the economy (i.e., global labor arbitrage), (3) institutions (i.e., patchwork capitalism), and (4) culture (i.e., shifting generational values). To further scholarly progress, management scholars need to be more attentive to turnover – and its determinants – for larger collectives, that is, at levels above the unit and organizational. The authors provide concrete suggestions on how the case of Bulgaria opens up some avenues for future research on turnover and retention.

This chapter analyses the different ways in which metal album covers draw upon medieval media. The analysis is situated within the broad theoretical frame of intermediality, and more specifically view the process where medieval media cross the borders and find their way into metal album covers as media transformation. Four different types of media transformation are analysed, and it is argued that the medievalism of album covers can be defined in terms of media transformation. Likewise, neomedievalism is defined in terms of second-order media transformation. The album cover is described as a media patchwork, and the chapter gives examples of the patches in terms of relationship and properties.

As proposed by Brandenburger and Nalebuff (1996), the concept of coopetition which highlights the coexistence of both collaborative and competitive forces in interorganizational settings aims to provide a new way of thinking for accelerating the innovation process and generating greater value. However, despite such recognitions, our understanding about how coopetition can help facilitate the innovation process in small and medium enterprises is rather limited. This should warrant a separate stream of research on this issue. Drawing on the concept of effectuation, we will explore the coopetitive innovation process in entrepreneurial firms. Sarasvathy (2001) proposed five principles embedded in the effectuation decision-making process of entrepreneurship. This process starts with a given set of means and controllable goals, followed by interactions with other stakeholders until they are all committed. The final stage leads to the creation of new products and services. The first two stages, means and goals, are the preparation stage in which an entrepreneurial firm distinguishes itself from large established corporations and establishes a base to leverage its contingency according to existing means and acceptable losses. After that, the effectuation process enters into the interaction and commitment stage during which the firm seeks relationships with stakeholders. We argue that the coopetitive forces can appear in the interaction and commitment stages to enlarge and capture value for the entrepreneurial firm involved.

Through the example of a “regulatory ranking” – an index produced with the aim to regulate the pharmaceutical market by pushing companies in the direction of providing greater access to medicine in developing countries – this chapter focuses on indexing and ranking as infrastructural processes which inscribe global problem spaces as unfolding actionable territories for market intervention. It foregrounds the “Indexal thinking” which structures and informs regulatory rankings – their aspiration to align the interests of different stakeholders and to entice competition among the ranked companies. The authors detail the infrastructural work through which such ambitions are enacted, detailing processes of infrastructural layering/collage and patchwork through which analysts naturalize/denaturalize various contested categories in the ranking’s territory. They reflect on the consequences of such attempts at reconfiguring global topologies for the problems these governance initiatives seek to address.

We examine the emergence of an organizational form, charter schools, in Oakland, California. We link field-level logics to organizational founding identities using topic modeling. We find corporate and community founding actors create distinct and consistent identities, whereas more peripheral founders indulge in more unique identity construction. We see the settlement of the form into a stable ecosystem with multiple identity codes rather than driving toward a single organizational identity. The variety of identities that emerge do not always map onto field-level logics. This has implications for the conditions under which organizational innovation and experimentation within a new form may develop.

This chapter explains how the idea of this book occurred, and introduces readers to Tierney's multidimensional framework for global meaning making. It describes the organization and structure of the book and the contents of each chapter and calls on readers to transform international language and literacy research through global meaning making.