Beyond firm-centrism: re-integrating labour and capitalism into global commodity chain analysis

By B. Selwyn. 2012

216 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Since the mid-1990s, global commodity chain (GCC) analysis has contributed much to our understanding of processes of globalization and development. It has however, broadly failed to integrate class relations generally and labour in particular into its approach. This article suggests that we can understand this failure by revisiting and critically interrogating GCC's intellectual foundationsin World Systems Theory and Schumpeterian conceptions of capitalist innovation. It also argues that if carefully reformed, these foundations can provide a useful framework from which to conduct research into processes of contemporary development. A central argument of this paper is that evolving capitallabour relations co-determine processes of capitalist expansion and development, and that a commitment to understanding and investigating these relations should be placed more firmly at the centre of GCC analysis.

Subfields: Business and International Management, Sociology and Political Science, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ac2794c7fde6440b66274f1786639d19460d120f

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Citations in the corpus

Digital labour and development: impacts of global digital labour platforms and the gig economy on worker livelihoods (2017, background): “…strategic points (because of their network centrality) that both labour and consumers potentially have more agency (Coe and Jordhus-Lier, 2011; Selwyn, 2012): thus opening up space in those places for regulations being enacted to govern how clients should treat their workers irrespective of…”
Labour in Global Value Chains: Work Conditions in Football Manufacturing in China, India and Pakistan (2012, background): “Recently, a number of scholars have begun to recognize this disjuncture (Rainnie et al., 2011; Selwyn, 2012).”
The evolution of power in the global coffee value chain and production network (2019, background): “But an increasing number of studies have found that despite producers’ best efforts, upgrading often fails to lead to improved value capture and regional development (Ponte and Ewert, 2009; Selwyn, 2012; Werner, 2012; Tokatli, 2013; Smith et al., 2014; Selwyn, 2015).”
The state, institutional frameworks and the dynamics of capital in global production networks (2015, background): “…given to the role that labour and workers play in the configuration of GPNs (Barrientos et al., 2010; Coe and Hess, 2012; Coe and JordhusLier, 2011; Cumbers et al., 2008; Selwyn, 2012; Smith et al., 2014; see also Gereffi et al., 1994), but the same cannot be said for analyses of the state.”
Poverty chains and global capitalism (2018, background): “uk Selwyn, Benjamin (2019) Poverty chains and global capitalism.”
Social Upgrading and Labour in Global Production Networks: A Critique and an Alternative Conception (2013, background): “As Wright (2000) and Selwyn (2012b) observe, class compromises, alliances and the institutionalization of these relations emerge out of processes of collective action by workers as they pursue their own goals, demonstrating to capital their collective strength.”
Hidden transcripts of the gig economy: labour agency and the new art of resistance among African gig workers (2019, background): “Therefore, heeding Selwyn’s call for identifying sources of worker’s structural power that might be turned into associational power (Selwyn, 2012), we explore how African gig workers used their structural power to develop ‘webs of care’ (Katz, 2004: 246).”