Running Head: GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS 1 How Global Competitiveness Affects Labor/Management Relations Douglas Allen Davis Post University GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS 2 Introduction 1. Select for my approval one of the following topics for your paper # 1 due in Unit 3: b. How Global Competitiveness Affects Labor/Management Relations. Note - Your first research paper is due on Sunday in Unit 3. All we need now is a TOPIC CHOICE. Per your course syllabus, each of your 3 papers must be a minimum of 3 full double-spaced pages and a maximum of 5 pages (not counting your title page or listing of resources.) You may use your textbook as a source, but you must have a minimum of 3 non-text sources as well. Please document your sources professionally and include a bibliography. A word to the wise -- Quality is paramount, but in most cases a 3 page paper will not be valued as highly as a 4 or 5 page paper. As a reminder, your three Research Papers due during the 3rd, 5th and 7th weeks will together account for 50 percent of your final grade. With increasing globalization there have been enormous and far-reaching changes in the global organization of capitalism. These changes are the result of the fierce international competitive pressures faced by enterprises operating in the global marketplace. One of the most significant changes has been the dramatic increase in the rate of global merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. Another has been the pronounced tendency of global enterprises to reorganize their operations so that they are transformed into coordinators of activities performed on their behalf by others. The sub-contracting and outsourcing of operations, particularly the more labor intensive ones, enable firms to reduce their overheads by externalizing the capital and other costs associated with the direct employment of labor. Naturally, outsourcing and subcontracting have resulted in the lengthening, indeed the globalization, of supply chains which have accordingly also grown in complexity. Globalization, and the development of global capitalism, has been greatly facilitated by, amongst other things, the reduction or removal of trade barriers, and the drastic weakening of barriers to the global movement of capital. Labor market deregulation, reflected in the emasculation of national Industrial Relations Systems (IRSs), has also contributed to increasing and accelerating globalization. Corresponding to the tendency national IRSs has been the trend to internalize labor regulation GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS 3 within the enterprise. Human Resource Management (HRM) is increasingly used by global enterprises as a regime of labor regulation tailored to the requirements of the individual firm. The growing dominance of HRM in the regulation of labor and the employment relationship has occurred in tandem with the increasing flexibilization of labor. The workforce of the global enterprise is increasingly divided into core workers and peripheral or flexible workers. The core workers are generally highly skilled professionals directly employed by the enterprise in its global headquarters, usually located in the one of the advanced industrial countries. These workers are usually, fulltime, permanent employees who are relatively well paid and receive other attractive rewards and entitlements. In contrast, the peripheral workers are not employed by the enterprise itself, but by its sub-contractors and suppliers. They are generally part-time or intermittent workers on low casual rates of pay. They are also generally women. Employment growth in the less developing countries over the past several decades, as well as in the advanced industrial countries over the same period, has seen a spectacular increase in the size of the flexible, female labor force rather than in the ranks of fulltime employees. If we consider the case of Bangladesh, we can find that the part time or temporary workers are increasingly dominant in the business environment. For example, many of the banks and insurance companies employ part time or temporary executives for selling or promoting their services (i.e. telephone banking, credit cards and insurance policies etc.). Mobile phone companies are hiring part time employees to provide customer services. In IT industry companies employ part time data entry operators, graphic designers and website developers etc. Recently we have observed that fast food and restaurant industry is very much ahead in employing part time workers for rendering services and working as kitchen hand. Pizza Hut is an example of successfully using the peripheral workforce. The employees of the fast food industry normally perform one particular type of activity all day long for 5 to 6 days of a week. In other industries like universities, colleges and sports clubs part time professional personnel play a key role with the full time professional personnel. On the other hand some historically female oriented industries of Bangladesh are also employing male employees at present. Previously in garments industry, most of the jobs suited female workers and were offered only for female workers, but at present garments industries are also offering production floor jobs as well GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS 4 as decision-making jobs for males. HRM is used as an internal system of labor regulation by enterprises to regulate the employment of their core workforce. On the other hand, it is also used as a system of labor regulation to regulate the employment of the enterprises peripheral or flexible workforce. In other words, it regulates the employment of workers employed by contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers right along the length of the supply chain. For the core workforce, HRM is cooperative, inclusive and participatory in orientation, concerned as it is with winning the individual commitment of core employees to the enterprise and the achievement of its strategic objectives. It emphasizes performance, skills and individualized monetary rewards. For the peripheral workforce, in contrast, HRM emphasizes short term and insecure employment, low hourly rates, degrading conditions of employment, lack of opportunities for training and career advancement, and so on. But it is also about improving the performance of the flexible workforce by speeding up or reducing the piece rate or casual hourly rates received by flexible workers, and offering them only intermittent employment, but at the same time extending the length of the working day. This paper further argues that it is not only enterprises operating in the global economy, which have been affected by global competitive pressures. Globalization has subjected firms, which serve only national domestic markets, and even those which service local and niche markets, to exactly the same pressures as those their global counterparts face. As a consequence, such firms are under duress to organize production in exactly same way as global business enterprises organize production. 1.1 Objective of the study x To examine recent trends and developments in global capitalism and analyze how these have led to the flexibilization of worker and employment . x To examine how globalization and flexibilization have given rise to the emergence of HRM as a system of labor regulation within the enterprise x To compare HRM and national IRSs as systems of labor regulation. x To provide insights for policy formulation in the era of globalization. GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS 5 Bibliography Senge, R. (1990 August). The Laws of the Fifth Discipline, The Fifth Discipline, 4:59-65. Washington Post (2013 May). The U.S. Military's Changing Camouflage, Politics. Retrieved https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/the-us-militarys-changingcamouflage/140/