Sorties de Cadre(s): Le licenciement pour motif personnel, instrument de gestion de la firme mondialisée

Tandis que les médias se focalisent sur les licenciements économiques et sur les plans sociaux devenus « plans de sauvegarde de l’emploi », les licenciements pour motif personnel (LMP) représentent désormais 70 % des licenciements prononcés en France. Les cadres sont les premiers visés, le plus souvent dans les grandes entreprises et dans le secteur des nouvelles technologies. Les auteurs s’appuient sur soixante entretiens avec des DRH, des cadres touchés par le LMP, des représentants syndicaux et des experts – juristes, avocats, inspecteurs du travail, consultants –, pour montrer comment les puissantes logiques de globalisation et de financiarisation ont profondément transformé la relation d’emploi. L’adoption d’un management par le marché, d’origine anglo-saxonne, a donné au LMP une place de premier plan. Moins contraignant juridiquement pour l’entreprise, moins « délicat » en terme d’image, ce dernier se substitue alors à d’autres modalités de départ. En donnant la parole aux cadres, les auteurs mettent à jour des situations très contrastées. Rupture identitaire et risque de précarité pour les uns, séparation négociée et opportunité pour d’autres, les « sorties de cadres » ne se valent pas toutes. Selon qu’ils sont « juniors » ou « seniors », qu’ils appartiennent à l’élite transnationale ou opèrent au niveau local, les cadres sont très inégalement armés pour y faire face. Un livre édifiant sur une pratique de gestion de plus en plus répandue, qui s’inscrit, plus largement, dans les débats contemporains sur les mutations du capitalisme français

Actualisation du concept de filière dans l'agriculture et l'agroalimentaire

International audienceSector analysis in terms of meso-analysis diversifies with reference to institutional economy paradigm This paper assess similarities and singularities between different terminologies used in sector analysis such as: filière, global value chain and supply chain on the basis of an historical perspective. The article presents the emergence of these concepts and their applications in analysing industrial and agricultural economies linkages and the emergence within the context of more global world.Dans les référentiels d'économie institutionnelle, la méso-analyse de filière se diversifie. En interrogeant la genèse du concept de filière et son application par l'économie industrielle, l'économie rurale et les sciences de gestion, dans l'agriculture et l'agroalimentaire, l'article examine en quoi les démarches de chaîne de valeur, chaîne globale de valeur et chaîne d'approvisionnement actualisent l'approche filière par des trajectoires analytiques nouvelles

World cities and global commodity chains: an introduction

The purpose of this special anniversary issue is to assess the possible cross-fertilization between two prominent analytical frameworks: the World City Network framework, in which researchers have studied the emergence of a globalized urban system for the provision of a host of advanced corporate services: and the Global Commodity Chain framework, in which researchers have scrutinized the inter connected functions, operations and transactions through which specific commodities are produced, distributed and consumed in a globalized economy. These two approaches have developed in parallel but have rarely been brought together. This introductory essay identifies the common roots and recent history of these two frameworks, and outlines how the six articles contribute to their theoretical and empirical cross-fertilization

Voiceless but empowered farmers in corporate supply chains: contradictory imagery and instrumental approach to empowerment

There have been calls for a shift of focus towards the political and power-laden aspects of transitioning towards socially equitable global supply chains. This paper offers an empirically grounded response to these calls from a critical realist stance in the context of global food supply chains. We examine how an imaginary for sustainable farming structured around an instrumental construction of empowerment limits what is viewed as permissible, desirable and possible in global food supply chains. We adopt a multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the sustainable farming imaginary for smallholder farmers constructed by one large organization, Unilever, in a series of videos produced and disseminated on YouTube. We expose the underlying mechanisms of power and marginalization at work within the sustainability imaginary and show how “empowerment” has the potential to create of new dependencies for these farmers. We recontextualize the representations to show that while the imaginary may be commercially feasible, it is less achievable in terms of empowering smallholder farmers

‘Classes of Labour’ at the Margins of Global Commodity Chains in India and China

This article deploys the concept of ‘classes of labour’ to map and compare non‐factory labour relations in the garment chain across Delhi and Shanghai metropolitan areas. It contributes to commodity studies by unpacking the great complexity of mechanisms of ‘adverse incorporation’ of informal work in global commodity chains and production circuits. Field findings reveal the great social differentiation at work in informalized settings in the two countries, and suggest that while the margins of garment work are characterized by high levels of vulnerability, they may also open up new possibilities for workers to resist or re‐appropriate some degree of control over their labour and reproductive time. While these possibilities depend on regional trajectories, informal labour arrangements do not only result from capital's quest for flexibility. Workers actively participate in shaping their own labour geography, even when exposed to high employment insecurity. The conclusions more broadly discuss the merits of comparative analysis to study labour in global production circuits

Catching-up in the global factory: analysis and policy implications

MNEs shape the location of activities in the world economy, linking diverse regions in what has been called the global factory. This study portrays the evolution of incomes and employment in the global factory using a quantitative input–output approach. We find emerging economies forging ahead relative to advanced economies in income derived from fabrication activities, handling the physical transformation process of goods. In contrast, convergence in income derived from knowledge-intensive activities carried out in pre- and post-fabrication stages is much slower. We discuss possible barriers to catching-up and policy implications for emerging economies in developing innovation capabilities, stressing the pivotal role of MNEs