The global division of labor is the concept that jobs requiring labor are focused within periphery and semi-periphery countries while research and developmental-related jobs occur within core countries. Key features of this concept would include economic interdependence, offshoring, communication, and treaties relating to trade. Economic interdependence is a key feature of this concept because economic interdependence emphasizes the idea that the economies of certain countries are dependent on the economies of other countries. This is evident within the global division of labor because, since these core countries no longer contain many labor-requiring jobs such as factories, they become dependent on other countries to produce goods for them. Offshoring is directly related to the idea of economic interdependence. Offshoring is the name for when companies locate parts of their production processes offshore, or within other countries. Communication also falls into this pool caused by the global division of labor. Communication increases between separate nations and separate companies due to the immense amount of offshoring occurring. This increasing communication is associated with trading treaties. Countries want …show more content…
companies. This offshoring is so prominent, especially within China, due to the low labor prices available within the country. So many companies have offshored to this developing country that many if not most items that Americans buy was made in China or other countries nearby. Along with these companies offshoring to China come environmental consequences. China has low environmental regulations, meaning that factories are abundant and excessive. This excess of factories has led to the extreme pollution of Chinese air and water, a major problem for a country that continues to house some of the world’s most well-known
Some of the American companies venturing abroad also play a part in the poisoning of the environment. The United States regulates pollution control through the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and hold companies liable for violating these
Free trade between countries is integral for strengthening prosperity through international coalition, allowing domestic companies to directly invest in international businesses. This allows these international businesses to produce goods at lower costs which, in turn, can be exported for lower costs. This ultimately benefits both parties in the deal. Outside of production, companies can also export technological service departments. It is argued that by doing this, jobs are outsourced and taken away from domestic citizenship. However, it is important to remember that through
“Cleaning up China” written by Rana Foroohar, informed Americans about environmentalist Ma Jun’s efforts to reduce pollution in China. Foroohar is an assistant managing editor for Time magazine. She also speaks to millions of television news watchers across the world for CNN. Foroohar recently traveled to Beijing and had the opportunity to extensively interview Ma, who has developed the strategy of publishing some of the polluting companies’ environmental data online. Using the Internet, he planned to expose to the entire world how foreign companies and their suppliers are polluting China, using that exposure to persuade those businesses to change their policies. Those records quickly went viral, producing a substantial impact. “ A 2011 report on Apple, for instance resulted in a major effort to clean up environmental violation in the company’s supply chain” (Foroohar, par. 4). Apple is just one of the many companies trying to change their environmental impact on China, principally because they care about the image they project to the world. However, Ma Jun’s strategic plan is not limited only to major corporations but to convince the entire world to jump on the environmental bandwagon. Foroohar wrote, “The initial goal is to coax the SOEs to grab the low-hanging fruit—retrofitting coal-fired power plants to reduce the worst emissions or stopping overproduction of steel” (Foroohar, par. 6). However, according to the news reports on CNN as late as October
One of China’s best successes has in turn been one of its biggest downfalls. One of the main problems is China’s greatest success which has been its phenomenal economic growth. This is one of the main drivers of the current environmental problems that the country faces. Factories dump pollutants into the air and water. It is difficult to see the Chinese government making the significant sacrifices required to improve their environment if it means slowing down their economic growth.
Factories in China are a primary enemy of clean air. Louise Watt, a writer for The Huffington Post News online, gives information about the war between the government and the factories in China. Watt writes, “Beijing's city government ordered 103 heavily polluting factories to suspend production.” However, many factories continue operating in different regions of China. Carol Huang, a writer for Taipei Times online, explains how a relocated factory called Fujia Dahua continues to produce pollution after the smog impacted China. Huang writes, “Smoke on Friday (Jan 25th) billows out of the chimneys of the Fujia Dahua factory, which was supposed to halt work and relocate 17 months ago.” China is the largest manufacturing country in the world
This is easily seen in the cost induced from laws outlining the safe handling, disposal, and production that in undeveloped countries such as Bengals clothing industry doesn’t have to deal with their lax environment and labour laws create enormous savings for the average consumer. If we ever wanted to compete with the price the Bengalis clothing industry was able to produce at we would be forced to cause unrepairable damages to the environments that we live in everyday and we take our kids to play in. Some might choose to argue that damage to the environment anywhere in the world is damage to the space we all live in, but in many undeveloped or developing countries they have already committed unrepairable damages to many rivers and lakes such as those in China. Which quickly leads to the question if someone gave you a dump to use would you leave the garbage in your own house? These are just some of the reasons environmentally why outsourcing provides great advantages for
Essentially it is the international relationships between countries in economic, political, technological and legal (Waddell, Jones and George, 2013). The relationship between countries can open up a plethora of job opportunities but also do the opposite and diminish existing jobs. Job creation and destruction can happen for multiple reasons but often the actions causing them are intended to have that affect.
In addition outsourcing is also the result of globalization; Jagdish Bhagwati’s definition of globalization says, “Globalization is integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flow, migration, and the spread of technology throughout the world” (Bhagwati 8). Finn implies that globalization is the major factor for the exploitation of cheap foreign labor in third world countries and the main cause
Recent decades have seen rapid growth of the world economy. This growth has been driven greatly by the rise in international trade. The international division of labor has expanded inequality greatly, concerning many if developed countries can afford to lose job security and exports to cheaper countries. Global markets have created lower market costs and increased production of goods globally. The benefits of the global market and the division of labor outweighing the negative consequences are controversial depending on where you
In Frida Kahlo’s, “Self Portrait Between the Borderline of Mexico and the United States”, the United States and Mexico are clearly in very different stages of industrialization. Seeing the cables connecting the industrial U.S and less developed Mexico shows how technology and business are connecting countries. This portrait was created over eighty years ago, but today there are even more ways to reach out to foreign countries. Some corporations and companies are reaching out to developing countries and using their labor force instead of hiring a domestic source for the job. Outsourcing is when a company receives goods or services from a foreign supplier rather than a domestic one. There are numerous reasons for companies to outsource jobs and
Offshoring attracts much more criticism when it comes to outsourcing. When a business considers leveraging offshore outsourcing in order to gain a competitive advantage there are a few definitive reasons. Many of those reasons revolve around an inability to hire domestic labor for the required job as mentioned above. The U.S. has high living standards along with strict health regulations that don’t exist abroad. China’s lack of environmental standards is another differentiating factor that gives their workforce a competitive advantage. As a result, China is able to keep their wages so low that it’s ultimately incomprehensible for business owners to justify not hiring there.
The process of globalization has numerous significant effects on countries, organizations, and individuals. These effects can be observed in the quality of products, in their prices, but also in their availability. Because of globalization, numerous companies prefer to expand their business on international level. Some of them outsource some of their processes and activities to cheaper destinations that allow them to reduce their investments.
Globalization became a worldwide phenomenon with the growth of market economy and information technology. With globalization, the operators of companies and enterprises could use resources, management, expertise, information and labour of the entire world to manufacture the goods in the most appropriate areas, and then sell the produce to the areas which require them, to accomplish the most favourable distribution of resources in the world. This caused enterprises and countries to break out the boundaries of the local resources and markets, starting a competition with others in a broader sense to accomplish development. Globalization brings states and regions together by reducing the distances between each other and increasing the degree
Aspects of Globalisation The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defined globalisation as, 'The geographical dispersion of industrial and service activities (for example, research and development, sourcing of inputs, production and distribution and the cross border networking of companies (for example through joint ventures and the sharing of assets) Economic activity is becoming organised on a global scale giving a new international division of labour, with production, investment patterns and movements and technology transfers all becoming global. In this strategy, activities are established in many sites spread over the world, based on a country's comparative
Offshoring business in China can also create a major weakness due the loose laws and regulations. Looking at the case of Apple, who outsources its business to Foxconn. Apple gives frequent pressure Foxconn to lower profit margins while demanding for the high workload. Foxconn response by reducing labour expenditures, by cutting wages and benefits. Due to a compulsory national minimum wage, wages are cut by forcing workers to work overtime. (Interview 2011 cited in Chan, Pun and Selden 2013, pp. 104-110). Chan, Pun and Selden (2013) suggest the outcome of this resulted in frequent cases of worker’s suicide, worker’s strike and labour exploitation. Therefore, high supervision costs need to be enforced to avoid similar incidences. Apple suffered from severe damage to corporate reputation, brand image and further it could even decrease