Japanese Business in Australia: A Management Survey of Industry Interaction with Locational Factors

This is a discussion of research findings on the interaction of the Japanese firms with Australia’s locational factors that affect their investment decisions in Australia. The paper argues that there is a convergence as well as divergence among the sixty-five companies from three industrial sectors on ten different factors affecting satisfaction that is reported by the management and the other variables that characterise the firm

The Japanese Management and Production System in Australia Recruitment, Training and Bonus in Japanese Hybrid Factories

Japanese manufacturers have reconstituted the Japanese management and production system in Australia at different levels of success since the late 1960s (Hutchinson and Nicholas 1994, Nicholas and Purcell 2001, Purcell et al. 1999). Three of the essential elements of the Japanese system, recruitment, training, and bonus payments are discussed in this paper in order exhibit the structure of the labour contract within the Japanese hybrid factories. The Japanese system has been transferred to all the continents in the past three decades (Abo 2011, 2010). It has been studied in the UK (Kumon 2007, 2004a), the US (Abo 2007, Kawamura 2011), and Australia (Bayari 2011). A common characteristic of these studies is that they use 2001 data sets in their discussions. This paper uses the author’s data, also from a 2001 research, in its analysis of eighteen Japanese manufacturers in Australia. The common thread that runs through the Japanese system and work force interaction in these three Anglo-Saxon economies is the waves of labour market deregulation since the 1980s (Bayari 2011). This process has undermined the traditional union power base, and reduced the scope of the state institutions to arbitrate

Manufacturing, Market Policy and Exports in Australia: Emulating the East Asian Economic Miracle

This paper considers industry policy and manufacturing in Australia by discussing the levels of tariffs and assistance by the Australian state. Australian policymakers have long been fascinated by the rise of East Asia and attempted to emulate a similar high-tech manufacturing industry via neo-liberal deregulation. Such a deregulation was of course was never part of the origin of the East Asian miracle until the 1980s. When it did occur however its effects soon became acutely visible in 1997-1998 across Asian economies. The paper does not discuss whether a singular East Asian economic model exists. Nor does it debate the validity of the project apparently contained in the government policy since the 1980s. More to the point, this paper raises the market policy movement that took inspiration from fixed perceptions of the East Asian economic mira-cle which was frequently (but not necessarily correctly) identified with neo-liberal deregulation. In the paper, the exports of elaborately transformed manufactures, especially during the Howard Coalition government (1996-2007) period, are analysed. What is Australia’s trade performance in such manufactures, including elaborately transformed manufactures? What is the debate on the current support mechanisms? Most importantly, what has the 1990s-2000s neoliberal market governance achieved in Australia? The paper covers these questions and reflects on the nature of Australian manufacturing exports to Japan

How Does Labour Work Now? A Quantitative Survey of Labour Practices in Japanese Multinationals Post 1996 Workplace Relations Act (Commonwealth)

The focus of this paper is the labour practices that are identified with Japanese management style and their functioning in Australian subsidiaries of Japanese MNEs. The context of their functioning is the changes in labour and management relations in Australia. The data used in this paper was collected, across Australia, in the period between February and July 2001; approximately four years after the 1996 Workplace Relations Act came into effect. The data was collected from fifty-one companies, seventeen each from the sectors of manufacture and assembly, service, and marketing and sales. The survey questionnaires were aimed at the management and asked them to rate the functioning of specific labour practices. These were crosstabulated with the union presence variable at the companies. The results are discussed along with the theoretical framework and the literature review

Economy and Market in China: The State, Wage Labour and the Construction of the ‘China Price’

China’s entry into the world trade, investment and production system and the economic growth of the last four decades have culminated in a rigid labour market duality that is based on the division of the urban-rural residential registry system, hukou. A migrant labour population has been created, the burdens of which have become augmented despite the long period of growth. Migrant labour is the producer of the “China price” which is the significantly low cost of production that the country provides to investors. This paper analyses the context of migrant labour and its origins. The discussion extends into the state policies on labour institutions (minimum wage system, All-China Federation of Trade Unions [ACFTU] and the welfare measures) and further analyses the conditions of the female and youth labour markets

The Neoliberal Globalization Link to the Belt and Road Initiative: The State and State-Owned-Enterprises in China [alternative title: Bilateral and Multilateral Dualities of the Chinese State in the Construction of the Belt and Road Initiative]

The Chinese state has integrated its economy into the neoliberal globalization of trade and investment without neoliberalizing its own financial markets, and to ensure stability, the state applies strict controls on interest rates, capital movement and the value of RMB. The Chinese state policies have divided the domestic economy into upstream and downstream domains whereby the state extracts rents from the private businesses profits downstream and then pump them upstream to underwrite the SOEs operating as monopolies (domestically), and as strategic traders, and investors (internationally). The state is the largest owner in the economy through holdings of shares in listed companies, direct ownership of enterprises, influence over privatized SOEs, and ownership of the public utility companies. The state has thus structured the domestic market in a way that has made the appearance of the BRI a cogent outcome. The BRI is a demand creation project for two distinct zones of the state-owned internationalized businesses, firstly, the Chinese state finance sector and secondly other sectors that primarily include the construction, logistics, and utilities. The Chinese state’s regulatory characteristics makes the financing and construction of the BRI possible, and reverential to the aims of the state. Further, the Chinese state has increased its weight in the Bretton Woods financial institutions, the IMF, and World Bank, while institutionalizing its reach in the formation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the co-creation of the New Development Bank. These processes have simultaneously ensured commitments to multilateralism and bilateralism

Australian Trade and FDI Relations with Japan: Reflecting on the Past Seven Decades

The post-World War II reconstruction of global trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) has been a significant topic of discussion in the analyses of numerous bilateral economic relations, including those that are located in Asia Pacific. Since the reconstruction, Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) have increasingly internalised trade and FDI in markets where they are active. Markets and MNE activities have grown together while governments have become more responsive to this process. This paper discusses the above process along with an analysis of the rise and development of the economic relationship between Australia and Japan from the immediate post-World War II phase through Australia’s neo-liberal trade policy phase. The post-World War II relationship began in the 1950s, and grew during the Cold War years, the end of which has created competitive pressures on the Australian economy. Australia has tried to overcome this by progressively adapting a unilateral neo-liberal trade policy and encouraging its trade and investment partners to do the same, unsuccessfully in most cases where such partners have extensive state subsidy structures in place. The paper discusses the effects of major events such as the Plaza Accord and the end of Japan’s ‘bubble economy’ on the relationship. The discussion extends into the development of new challenges in the 2010s

Chinese Economy and Central Asia

Chinese economic growth has accompanied the rise and development of the Chinese economic model with its own types of multinational enterprises, and state-owned enterprises. Major stock market plunges in 2015 have taken away the focus from the model and the manufacturing base that upholds it. Analyses of the system of the Chinese state, its enterprises and the private sector need to continue to understand the future of this economy and its implications for the rest of the world. Central Asian energy markets, which China has entered a decade ago, are important in this context, as their future behaviour will have consequences for the EU, North American and Australian markets. The Chinese state is the owner of the largest banks and sovereign wealth funds in the world. When China lost its energy independence in 1993, it began to rely on Central Asian energy markets and increasingly placed more emphasis on the region as a hub for its economic expansion, and as a strategic location and export market. The region, neighboring Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is one of the foci of organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and projects such as the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB). Chinese trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) in the region involve plans to build economic and other links from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region across Central Asia. This paper argues that Central Asia faces some challenges due to its landlocked status, and industrial structure and markets, despite its energy and mineral resources, some of which is yet to be developed

Labour-centred Politics and Judicial Institutionalisation: The Lineaments of an Early Proto-Regulatory State Model in Australia

Australia, since the early 1980s, has been a leading advocate and practitioner of the neo-liberal economic model, also known as the Anglo-Saxon (or Anglo-American) model due to its geographical origins in the UK and the US, and its subsequent ascendancy in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, prior to its global hegemony (Bayari 2012a). A major component of this model has been the deregulatory market policies that have come to dominate all aspects of life. There are prior discussions of Australia’s deregulation dogmas and practices that this paper does not cover (Bayari 2012c, Bayari 2012d). Interestingly, Australia was a pioneer of a proto-regulatory economic model at the turn of the twentieth century. The emergence of the federal state in Australia in 1901 led to a level of hitherto unseen level of intervention in the market. Australia, like Canada, the US and New Zealand inherited the political, legal and other institutions of the UK. However, the Australian state followed a different path by regulating capital and labour relationship through the enforcement of compulsory conciliation and arbitration (Bayari 2012b). This proto-regulatory state model of the Antipodes preceded the post-Second World War regulatory state in the West by decades. The 1941-1949 Labor governments, under John Curtin and Ben Chifley, created new institutions for welfare, and health care provision, and attempted to create a new society, such as in terns of defining the content of citizenship, and creating the notion of entitlement to non-market wage, while the governments of the period from thereafter until 1972 can be characterised as calculatingly inert

Preliminary study of the Gravimetric Local Geoid Model in Jordan: case study (GeoJordan Model)

Recently, there has been an increased interest in studying and defining the Local and Regional Geoid Model worldwide, due to its importance in geodetic and geophysics applications.The use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) is internationally growing, yet the lack of a Geoid Model for Jordan has limited the use of GPS for the geodetic applications in the country. This work aims to present the preliminary results that we propose for «The Gravimetric Jordanian Geoid Model (GeoJordan)». The model is created using gravimetric data and the GRAVSOFT program. The model is validated using GPS and precise level measurements in the Amman area. Moreover, we present a comparison using the Global Geopotential Model OSU91A and the EGM96 Model and the results showed great discrepancies. We also present the approach used to obtain the orthometric height from GPS ellipsoidal height measurements. We found that the error margin obtained in this work of the GeoJordan after fitting the data with GPS/leveling measurements is about (10 cm) in the tested area whereas the standard error of the created model is about (40 cm)