Global Supply Chains and Social Relations at Work: Brokering across Boundaries

TY - JOUR

T1 - Global Supply Chains and Social Relations at Work

T2 - Brokering across Boundaries

AU - Reinecke, Juliane

AU - Donaghey, Jimmy

AU - Wilkinson, Adrian

AU - Wood, Geoff

PY - 2018/4/1

Y1 - 2018/4/1

N2 - Global supply chains are not just instruments for the exchange of economic goods and flow of capital across borders. They also connect people in unprecedented ways across social and cultural boundaries and have created new, interrelated webs of social relationships that are socially embedded. However, most of the existing theories of work are mainly based at the level of the corporation, and not on the network of relations that interlink them, and how this may impact on work and employment relations. We argue that this web of relations should not just be seen in economic, but also social terms, and that the former are embedded and enabled by the latter. This article argues for the value of focusing on the role of brokers and boundary workers in mediating social relations across the global supply chain. It develops four approaches that lie on a spectrum from structural perspectives focused on brokers who link otherwise unconnected actors to more constructivist ones focused on boundary workers performing translation work between domains.

AB - Global supply chains are not just instruments for the exchange of economic goods and flow of capital across borders. They also connect people in unprecedented ways across social and cultural boundaries and have created new, interrelated webs of social relationships that are socially embedded. However, most of the existing theories of work are mainly based at the level of the corporation, and not on the network of relations that interlink them, and how this may impact on work and employment relations. We argue that this web of relations should not just be seen in economic, but also social terms, and that the former are embedded and enabled by the latter. This article argues for the value of focusing on the role of brokers and boundary workers in mediating social relations across the global supply chain. It develops four approaches that lie on a spectrum from structural perspectives focused on brokers who link otherwise unconnected actors to more constructivist ones focused on boundary workers performing translation work between domains.

KW - Global Production Networks

KW - boundary work

KW - global governance

KW - socio-economics

KW - global value chains

U2 - 10.1177/0018726718756497

DO - 10.1177/0018726718756497

M3 - Article

SN - 0018-7267

VL - 71

SP - 459

EP - 480

JO - HUMAN RELATIONS

JF - HUMAN RELATIONS

IS - 4

ER -