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The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (2017, pp. 14–15) identified that “industrialization is the seedbed for entrepreneurship, business investment, technological progress, the upgrading of skills, and the creation of decent jobs.” This placed studying different industrial sectors and their respective clusters, which are key drivers for economy, innovation, and knowledge creation (Slaper, Harmon, & Rubin, 2018), at the forefront of research. This chapter tackles the automobile industrial cluster in Egypt that possesses promising potential yet faces some challenges. It aims to provide an overview of the cluster, alongside underpinning its strengths and obstacles facing it. Moreover, the chapter displays the importance of the labor dimension in increasing the labor competitiveness of the cluster and showcases this through two cases of German automobile manufacturers that pioneered in venturing into the market through employing technical and vocational education and training. In conclusion, recommendations are provided to help in steering the cluster toward success.

This chapter argues that the key Eurozone imbalances are not a failure of nation states. At the heart of the integration process is the convergence criteria – limits on government deficit, debt, interest rate, inflation, etc. While these were intended to eliminate asymmetries across countries, the conception of convergence was too narrow since the euro designers completely ignored the elephant in the room – that countries were on different technological frontiers. I show that this difference is an important determinant of the key macroeconomic imbalances across the Eurozone. It follows that the primary convergence criterion should be limits on non-price competitive gaps across countries. The chapter overturns the simplistic view of price competitiveness and illustrate that the regulating forces of competition originate from productive structures.

This paper aims to examine and analyze the effects of government policy, quality of human resources and professional institutions on workforce competitiveness using welding technology variable as a mediating variable.

This study used quantitative research by using partial least square – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the collected data.

Based on the results of the analysis, it was noted that there was a significant influence between government policy, quality of human resources and professional institutions on welding technology. The coefficients are characterized by a positive direct relationship, which means that the higher the quality of government policy and human resources professionals variables, the higher the value of the institute of welding technology.

This study recommends that government should create policies that have benefits to competitiveness of Indonesian workforce. Implications from this study support government to use the model to determine and initiate policies in the field of welding as well as establish clear and standardized operating standards and recruitment process (government apparatus) that can accommodate the competitiveness of welding workers in Indonesia.

The originality of this paper is that the participatory approach was adopted in this study using PLS-SEM. In addition, this study was one of the first studies to carry out research at the BNSP office, BLK-Bandung-Jakarta, Makassar, B4T and dismiss the Ministry of Manpower and the Ministry of Industry in Jakarta, Indonesia, where there was no research in this location. Previous studies conducted research in various case studies.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the popular belief that for organizations (and countries) to be economically prosperous they require a highly flexible industrial relations framework in which to operate, that provides minimal protection for employees.

The paper uses new data from the World Bank and expert commentary to assess the validity of the above‐mentioned belief.

The paper explains that there are numerous examples of countries that are highly competitive and prosperous yet have rigid labor‐protection legislation and many instances of countries with very flexible labor law that are performing poorly economically. Therefore, there is no absolute link between economic prosperity/competitiveness and lax labor laws.

The paper advances the view that human‐resource specialists, through the decisions they make, can contribute to their organizations' competitiveness irrespective of the legislative framework in which they must operate.

The paper argues that workers' protections in the workplace should not be used by legislators, pundits or employer interest groups as a reason for explaining economic woe or be portrayed as a burden that, if lessened, will lead to increased economic competitiveness. It is possible to have strong worker‐friendly labor laws and vibrant, competitive industry.

The paper provides an up‐to‐date assessment of current economic conditions in different countries and relates these to newly released World Bank data. Adds to the ongoing discourse about labor law and its relationship to economic prosperity.

Compensation systems serve a critical role in strategic human resources management, and over the past twenty-five years, there have been an increasing number of public sector reform efforts aimed at better aligning compensation practices with institutional workforce needs. While many past reforms have been performance driven, the nationʼs most recent economic downturn has served as potent catalyst for a renewed focus on public sector compensation, particularly reforms to public sector retirement benefits. However, given the traditional importance of public sector retirement benefits within broader bureaucratic structures, these new reforms hold the potential to substantially alter human capital capacity in the public sector. Using wage and retirement benefit data from the U.S. Census Bureauʼs Current Population Survey and National Compensation Survey, this paper finds that state and local governments face significant threats to their long-term human capital capacity in light of potential benefit reforms that place a disproportionate emphasis upon competitive wage rates.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how concentrated owners add value to Asian firms. While prior research suggests that relational owners (i.e., business groups, top management team, board, government, banks, families, and corporation) may help firms fill institutional voids, this study proposes that it is transactional owners (i.e., foreign and institutional investors) lacking this ability who contribute most to firm performance. As these owners frequently hail from contexts with well-developed corporate governance traditions, they tend to have experience with the design and implementation of such governance practices.

This study involves a meta-analysis covering 276 studies from 17 Asian countries.

This study shows that transactional owners impose effective governance practices such as separating the chief executive officer (CEO) and Chair roles and assuring board independence. These practices promote decisions benefiting all shareholders, such as preventing diversification and financial over-leveraging.

This study contributes to the comparative corporate governance literature by showing that implementing internal governance practices helps improve firm performance in Asia. It also contributes to the owner identity literature by opening the black box of how transactional and relational owners differentially affect firms’ strategic behavior. Overall, this study yields a more nuanced understanding of what transactional owners contribute to Asian firms.

A mail survey was conducted among 535 worldwide water ports and water carriers to learn about (1) the importance of various port selection factors and (2) the influence of contemporary trade issues on international port operations. Analysis of 134 responses (25 per cent response rate) revealed general agreement among respondents in terms of port selection factors, with equipment availability and loss and damage record ranked as most important. However, there was little agreement among survey participants concerning the influence of contemporary trade issues. Comparison by respondent nationality (US, non‐US) revealed that US interests oppose an increase in the value of the US dollar; US respondents also indicate that ports are not secure from terrorist actions. Comparison by primary function (ports, carriers) found substantial disagreement on operational issues and personnel issues.

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.