The politics of global production: Apple, Foxconn and China's new working class

By J. Chan, N. Pun, M. Selden. Asia-Pacific Journal, 2013

218 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Apple's commercial triumph rests in part on the outsourcing of its consumer electronics production to Asia. Drawing on extensive fieldwork at China's leading exporter—the Taiwanese-owned Foxconn—the power dynamics of the buyer-driven supply chain are analysed in the context of the national terrains that mediate or even accentuate global pressures. Power asymmetries assure the dominance of Apple in price setting and the timing of product delivery, resulting in intense pressures and illegal overtime for workers. Responding to the high-pressure production regime, the young generation of Chinese rural migrant workers engages in a crescendo of individual and collective struggles to define their rights and defend their dignity in the face of combined corporate and state power.

Subfields: Business and International Management, Public Administration, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/306167ca5dccc1f9cdac3661ec1ce455c29d2cec

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Citations in the corpus

The Governance of Global Value Chains: Unresolved Human Rights, Environmental and Ethical Dilemmas in the Apple Supply Chain (2015, background): “The Chinese labour force is becoming less docile, however (Chan 2013; Chan et al. 2013), evident in the uprisings at the factories of many multinationals in China in recent years (Richburg 2010).”
Global value chains, rising power firms and economic and social upgrading (2015, background): “…and the fast pace of production virtually dictated by buyers significantly hamper their ability to improve labor conditions for workers, even after a series of worker suicides sparked widespread criticism and intense scrutiny from the public and the media (Chan et al., 2013; Lee and Gereffi, 2013).”