Social Upgrading and Labour in Global Production Networks: A Critique and an Alternative Conception

By B. Selwyn. 2013

179 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Over the last two decades the global commodity chain, global value chain and global production network (GCC/GVC/GPN) frameworks have facilitated valuable research into contemporary global capitalism. However, much of this research has paid insufficient attention to work and workers. Recently, the concept of social upgrading, with a strong emphasis on workers' conditions, has been advanced by leading GCC/GVC/GPN theorists, as a potential remedy to the previous lacunae. This article welcomes this development, but also argues that the social upgrading concept represents an elite comprehension of relations between capital, the state and labour. It is argued that the concept, derived from the International Labour Organization's Decent Work Agenda, denies the reality of labour's exploitation by capital and is therefore only partially equipped to explain the existence of indecent work. The Decent Work Agenda and the social upgrading concept expect improvements in work to be delivered by elite actors such as firms, national states and international organizations. It is argued that, through re-visiting Marx's explication of the capitalist labour process, it is possible to comprehend the nature of capitalist exploitation, the root causes of indecent work and resistance to it, and thus to develop an alternative conception of social upgrading. The article presents evidence from North East Brazilian export horticulture to support these arguments.

Subfields: Political Science and International Relations, Public Administration, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/24c0d73c2f0507c7b69bb281296c0175a81f06ac

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Political Science and International Relations

1. Joonkoo Lee
2. I. Kvangraven
3. S. Rai
4. K. Ruwanpura
5. Gary Gereffi

In Public Administration

1. Joonkoo Lee
2. I. Kvangraven
3. Gary Gereffi

In Strategy and Management

1. Joonkoo Lee
2. Gary Gereffi
3. I. Kvangraven
4. K. Ruwanpura
5. Jennifer Bair
6. Torben Pedersen
7. Henry S. C. Yeung
8. Jirí Blazek

Citations in the corpus

• SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth – A gendered analysis (2019, background): “…assume elite actors, such as firms, nation states, and international organisations are capable of delivering improvements to the lives of workers, Selwyn (2013) cautions that insufficient attention is given to the agency of workers themselves, whose claims are neglected in corporate-led global…”
• Beyond the Stereotype: Restating the Relevance of the Dependency Research Programme (2020, background): “…Hopkins and Wallerstein 1986), it has in large part lost its original macrohistorical perspective as it now centres more on organizational analysis of firms and industries, and thereby diverts attention from global patterns of uneven development (Bair and Werner, 2011; Selwyn, 2013; Suwandi, 2019).”
• Economic and Social Upgrading in Global Value Chains and Industrial Clusters: Why Governance Matters (2014, background): “Employers can try to make up for their concession to one group with gains from others and use the latter as a buffer for their flexibility (Posthuma 2010; Selwyn 2013).”
• Global value chains, rising power firms and economic and social upgrading (2015, background): “Active roles can be played by workers and labor unions in GVCs, who often are the best monitors on the ground (O’Rourke, 2006) and who have considerable power to disrupt the supply chains in their bargaining with employers (Selwyn, 2013).”