QUESTIONS ON READING FOR TOPIC 9
Excerpt from Klein, N. (2000) No Logo, London, Flamingo.
This examination of the nature of globalised production and branding was published in the year 2000 and very quickly became an international best-seller, receiving rave reviews from both the general book-buying public and many academic audiences. In the chapter we consider here, cultural critic and journalist Naomi Klein examines the conditions of labour and production in our economically globalised world. With her combination of detailed empirical evidence and accessible journalistic prose Klein’s chapter makes for compelling, and disturbing, reading and gives us much to reflect upon concerning the nature of management in a globalised/ globalising world.
1. What is the main argument of this chapter and how is the work structured to develop this argument?
2. Outline the nature of the ‘Nike Model’ of outsourcing as Klein (2000) describes it.
3. What are ‘Economic Processing Zones’? What is the significance of the contribution of these zones to the production of goods and profits in the global economy? What are the:
i. typical working conditions
ii. level of wages
iii. type of management control, and
iv. profile of the employees in these zones?
4. What is the likelihood that you are currently wearing clothes or footwear produced by workers in these zones, working under these conditions?
5. Why do corporations in Australia, the US, the UK, Europe, Japan, etc, outsource production to Economic Processing Zones?
6. Do managers of corporations (in Australia for example), that have significantly lowered costs by subcontracting out production to those operating in such zones, have a responsibility for monitoring and improving the working conditions of the workers involved?
a. If yes, why? What part of this responsibility is legal, moral, commercial…..?
b. If no, why not? And again, what part of your argument is made from legal, moral, and /or commercial grounds?
7. What are some of the potential dangers of commercial decisions to reduce labour costs by outsourcing production to low wage economies? (n.b. think broadly here, for example, dangers for corporate reputation, for humanity, for global inequality, for future political instability). Who should consider and act upon such dangers and how?
