The impact of global forces on the individual: empirical evidence from the German clothing industry

Linda Nierling () and Bettina Krings ()

No 08/2010, IET Working Papers Series from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, IET/CICS.NOVA-Interdisciplinary Centre on Social Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology

Abstract: Starting from theoretical perspectives on globalisation, the following article analyses how current working conditions are affected by globalisation processes. For this purpose, recent developments in the German clothing sector are traced back to the power of economic globalisation processes. Characterising the German clothing sector as pioneer in economic globalisation, we use empirical findings to illustrate how current processes of globalisation influence the work place: At organisational level, corporate strategies aim at rationalisation, standardisation and flexibilisation of work in order to response to the economic pressure of global markets. At individual level these strategies, in turn, speed up working processes and intensify working processes for the employees. Although these developments form strong trends, we conclude that the local embeddedness of companies is still of high importance with regard to organisational and individual consequences of globalisation.

Keywords: globalisation; working conditions; clothing sector; Germany; corporate strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J81 L67 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2010-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ieu:wpaper:29

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