UNSPECIFIED (1998) New town, new capital, new workplace? The employment relations of Japanese inward investors in a West Midlands new town. In: Workshop of the European-Management-and-Organizations-in-Transition-Programme, MALAGA, SPAIN, JAN, 1997. Published in: ECONOMY AND SOCIETY, 27 (4). pp. 523-553.

Abstract

In this paper we examine the character of employment and industrial relations within new manufacturing industry in a new-town setting. We show how a combination of national and local state initiatives generated a new pattern of manufacturing, dominated by foreign-owned companies. Drawing from extensive fieldwork in Japanese firms, we demonstrate, contra the 'Japanization' thesis, that greenfield sites do not provide employers with unconstrained opportunities to control labour. Rather, we highlight how capital-labour relations developed through interaction between large firms, state agencies and workers, producing an evolving and contested new employment settlement. Our analysis also underlines the limits confronting local state development strategies under a neo-liberal state regime.

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