Transnational Corporations from the Standpoint of Workers [electronic resource] /
Räthzel, N.author.
Mulinari, D.author.
Tollefsen, A.author.
This book explores the history and global expansion of AB Volvo, one of the hundred largest corporations in the world, through the experiences of its workers in Sweden, Mexico, South Africa, and India. It investigates how neo-liberalisation has transformed the company into a promoter of lean production, at the expense of the workers' needs.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Half-Title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Part I Theories and Histories of Labour; 1 In Search of Labour in Labour Studies; The disappearance of work?; Is there labour in organisational psychology?; Searching for workers' agency in Polanyian labour studies; Labour in Labour Process Theory - the dominance of the researcher; A poststructuralist approach in Labour Process Theory; Studies of women factory workers; Finding the missing subject in the industrial workplace; Elements of a theory of work; Subjectivity; Critical Psychology: a non-essentialist societal human nature
2 Production Processes in a Globalising WorldTheoretical approaches; The contested fi elds of development and globalisation; World-Systems Theory and the 'new' semi-peripheries; Theorising space and place - examining new spatialities of power; Varieties of fi rm-place relations; The case of AB Volvo in the globalising automotive industries; A short history of the automotive industry; AB Volvo: transnational interconnectedness in local places; Joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions in the 1970s and 1980s; The divestments of the 1990s
AB Volvo in The 2000s: growth by acquisitions and 'global optimising'Transnationalisation of production in AB Volvo; 3 Qualitative Methods: What We Did and How We Did It; How we think about our work: research from the standpoint of workers; How we think about qualitative methods; The pitfalls of investigative curiosity; Are you from the company? How we were positioned and how we positioned ourselves; Negotiating trust and distance in Mexico; Being examined and found acceptable in Durban; Losing power in India; Contradictory familiarity in Umeå; Knowledge for whom and for what?
Part II Entering the Factory Gates4 Locating Volvo: Four Plants, Four Places, Four Histories; The Swedish periphery - firm-place relations of the Umeå plant; Historical trajectories of investments; Umeverken: place and times; Management and workers - a team representing its factory; Disempowering the local; México - the radical contemporaneity of centre and semi-periphery; Competitive pressures from the semi-periphery; Optimising for the corporation; Volvo in South Africa - from the periphery to the semi-periphery; Socio-spatial tensions; Globalising industrial production - upgrading Durban?
Bangalore: locating in the Asian growth marketThe aims from above; The story from below; 5 Regimes of Representation: Trade Unions in Sweden and Mexico; Mexico - A history of co-optation and resistance; Unions as mediators of subordination; Subordinated inclusion; Unionists protecting the order; Sweden - unions and the withering away of the welfare state; The Volvo union in Umeå: community unionism; A union defending its members - members in defence of their union; Paradise lost - nostalgia or lived experience?; Part III Subjectivities at Work
6 Men's Jobs - Women's Work: Women as Industrial Workers
Includes bibliographical references and index.
This book explores the history and global expansion of AB Volvo, one of the hundred largest corporations in the world, through the experiences of its workers in Sweden, Mexico, South Africa, and India. It investigates how neo-liberalisation has transformed the company into a promoter of lean production, at the expense of the workers' needs.
Volvo, Aktiebolaget
Volvo, Aktiebolaget
Industrial sociology.
International relations.
Economic development.
Industrial organization.
Labor economics.
Organization.
Planning.
Sociology of Work.
International Relations.
Development Studies.
Industrial Organization.
Labor Economics.
Organization.