Global Strategies And Local Realities

This book provides up-to-date information on globalisation trends and the transformations taking place in emerging markets. It discusses key themes of relevance to the auto industry, including the environmental impact of the car, adaptation of designs for the needs of emerging markets and the emergence of global mega-suppliers. These issues are placed in the context of more general debates about globalisation and current crises in emerging markets such as Brazil and East Asia.

Focusing on Ghana, the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from European colonial rule and the first in the world to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this book explores how dominant children's rights principles interact with the lived realities of a range of children’s lives. The author considers the changeability and inconsistencies of childhoods within this context and the factors that underpin these varied intersections, including cultural norms, British colonial legacy, the influence of Christianity, urbanization, and social, economic and political transformations. Challenging one-dimensional portrayals of childhoods in the Global South, the author highlights the need for more holistic approaches to the study of children’s lives and children’s rights realization in Southern contexts.

The rise of emerging economies represents a challenge to traditional global power balances and raises the question of how we can combine sustainability with continued economic growth. Understanding this global shift and its impact on the environment is the paramount contemporary challenge for development-oriented researchers and policy makers alike. This book breaks new ground by combining scholarship on the role of emerging economies with research on sustainable development. The book investigates how the development strategies of emerging economies challenge traditional development theory and sustainability discourses. With regional introductions and original case studies from South Asia, East Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, it discusses how to conceptualise sustainable development in the global race for economic prosperity. What characterises the development strategies of emerging economies, and what challenges are these posing for global sustainable development? How can emerging economies shed light on the global challenges, dilemmas and paradoxes of the relationship between socio-economic improvements and environmental degradation? This book will be a valuable resource for researchers and postgraduates in development studies, geography, economics and environmental studies.

It is a great pleasure to share with you the Springer LNCS proceedings of the Second World Summit on the Knowledge Society, WSKS 2009, organized by the Open - search Society, Ngo, http://www.open-knowledge-society.org, and held in Samaria Hotel, in the beautiful city of Chania in Crete, Greece, September 16–18, 2009. The 2nd World Summit on the Knowledge Society (WSKS 2009) was an inter- tional scientific event devoted to promoting dialogue on the main aspects of the knowledge society towards a better world for all. The multidimensional economic and social crisis of the last couple of years has brought to the fore the need to discuss in depth new policies and strategies for a human centric developmental processes in the global context. This annual summit brings together key stakeholders involved in the worldwide development of the knowledge society, from academia, industry, and government, including policy makers and active citizens, to look at the impact and prospects of - formation technology, and the knowledge-based era it is creating, on key facets of l- ing, working, learning, innovating, and collaborating in today’s hyper-complex world. The summit provides a distinct, unique forum for cross-disciplinary fertilization of research, favoring the dissemination of research on new scientific ideas relevant to - ternational research agendas such as the EU (FP7), OECD, or UNESCO. We focus on the key aspects of a new sustainable deal for a bold response to the multidimensional crisis of our times.

Examine the costs and benefits of fiscal wars between Brazilian states Latin American Business examines Brazil’s use of fiscal incentives to attract investors to help remedy disparities in the country’s regional distribution of income. Since the 1990s, individual Brazilian states have taken the initiative in trying to lure domestic and foreign firms to locate within their borders, targeting the automotive industry, textiles, and shoe production. But their efforts have led to mixed results and questions about whether these fiscal wars have been legitimate attempts at regional economic development or simply a distortion in the allocation of resources. This insightful collection of case studies and essays sheds considerable light on the issue. For several generations, the notion has been debated both in advanced industrial countries and in developing countries that regional differences in income will gradually be eliminated as poor regions (where money is scare but labor is not) benefit from the inflow of investments. In reality, this has rarely happened; Latin American Business examines why that has been the case in Brazil. The book’s contributors fuel this continuing debate, analyzing topics that include Bahia’s efforts to attract a Ford plant, the Mercedes-Benz project in Juiz de Fora, the case of Renault in Paraná, fiscal incentive programs in Pernambuco, and the tax incentive policies of Ceará. Latin American Business includes: an evaluation of the costs and benefits of federal and state incentives given to Ford Motor Company to attract a plant in Bahia an analysis of the use of state and municipal incentives by the state of Minas Gerais in dealing with Mercedes-Benz Corporation a look at Paraná’s agreement with Renault and the degree to which it has created jobs and attracted other investments an examination of structural changes in the Brazilian automotive industry a look at the Brazilian automotive industry in the 1990s an evaluation of the results of Pernambo’s fiscal incentives program from 1996 to 2003 a discussion of the economic logic for tax incentives a look at the economic effects of regional tax incentives and much more Latin American Business is an essential resource for academics, business practitioners, public policymakers, and anyone working in the international development community.

The automobile sector is one of the most archetypal global industries and is seen by many as one of the main drivers behind the homogenisation of world markets due to firms' internationalization strategies and the social practices that firms impose. This book argues that this is not entirely the case due to the heterogeneity of firms and the diversity of strategies pursued. It highlights the diversity and forms of internationalization and the preference for regionalization rather than globalization that has occurred over the past decade. This book looks specifically at the American and Asian car industry.

This book offers a critical analysis of recent developments in the automotive industry of East-Central Europe (ECE). Economists, industry specialists and national governments have considered the rapid development of the automotive industry in ECE in the past twenty years an unqualified success. This rapid growth has been based on large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Western Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea, and it significantly contributed to GDP growth, created thousands of new jobs, and completely transformed the previously existing automotive industry in the region. This volume offers an analysis that goes beyond uncritical celebratory accounts of this rapid growth. It is based on original, detailed firm-level research conducted by the author in Czechia and Slovakia between 2009 and 2015 that covered assembly firms and the networks of component suppliers. Theoretically and conceptually, the analysis will draw on the global production networks and global value chains perspectives. Drawing on the original empirical data and on additional available information, this volume concentrates on several important questions related to the development of the automotive industry in ECE in the 2000s:• The role of FDI in the rapid development of the automotive industry after 1990 and particularly in the 2000s.• The upgrading of the automotive industry in East-Central Europe through FDI• The position of ECE in the automotive industry research and development (R&D)• The effects of the 2008-2009 economic crisis in the automotive industry of ECE.• The role of state in the rapid development of the automotive industry in ECE in the 1990s and 2000s.• The effects of FDI on domestic firms in the form of linkages between foreign-owned and domestic firms and spillovers from foreign-owned to domestic firms.