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The purpose of this paper is to analyse human resource supply chains and the responsibility of occupational health and safety (OHS) management using Australian evidence from two unrelated research studies in the resources sector.

The analysis is based on additional findings from the research projects using qualitative case study methodologies. The paper draws on interviews with the underground mining manager in study 1 and the OHS manager in study 2, together with current literature on supply chains and OHS responsibility in Australia.

The paper uses examples drawn from two research studies conducted in the resources sector in 2011 to present the notion that there has been a shift in responsibility and management of OHS from the top of the supply chain to the bottom.

The paper draws on two unrelated studies that investigated different issues in OHS management. There is a need to undertake specific research to confirm the argument that suggests that the OHS management systems are improving for the bottom of the human resources supply chain in the resources sector.

Findings suggest that in the middle tier resources sector the bottom of the human resources supply chains have robust OHS management systems and induction training, contrary to the weakening of OHS management in typical supply chains in other sectors.

Unlike manufacturing, healthcare, the public sector and transport, there is little research conducted in the resources sector researching supply chains and OHS management. This paper provides limited evidence of a differing picture in the resources sector than other industries; however, it argues that further studies should be conducted.

The aim of this study is to propose a link between international business (IB) and economic geography, which are two streams of thought that have developed without one acknowledging the other. We use the Uppsala model and the Global Production Network as pillars to sustain this link. We expect that this research triggers a collaboration with allied social sciences in important debates surrounding the business-societal interface.

We selected papers produced by Johanson and Vahlne to understand the development of the Uppsala model over 40 years. The same was done with the Global Production Network, where we scrutinized the work of Henderson, Coe, Dicken, Hess and Yeung – scholars from the Manchester School of Geography – in the last twenty years. Based on Humphrey et al. (2019), we applied an inductive and inferential approach to uncover similarities and differences between the Uppsala model and Global Production Network.

The Uppsala model reinforces the strategic role of network position in the internationalization process, while the Global Production Network aims to explain how the governance of global firms scattered world-wide affects the development and upgrading opportunities of the various regions and firms involved. Despite these clear differences, the geographical nature of IB and shared similarities accounting the network as a channel to foster and provide access to important resources and practices regarding management, coordination and governance of dispersed parts of multinational enterprises give room to using these two theories as pillars to link IB and economic geography.

While attempts to link IB and economic geography are not new, none of these studies have focused on the Uppsala model and Global Production Network as pillars to create a link. We foresee an intense cross collaboration and an even possible renaissance of IB and economic geography to target the ever-changing business environment and its impact on social and economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how human resource (HR) managers in garment factories in a Sri Lankan export processing zone (EPZ) navigated the tension between their role as stewards of employee welfare and their role to maximise firm productivity in response to time and production pressures imposed by international buyers. Relatively little attention has been paid to the role of HR managers as liaisons between firms and labour. This omission is significant, given the importance of human resource management in the recruitment and retention of labour and the role of HR managers in organisational performance and regulatory compliance.

A qualitative approach was used based on interviews with 18 HR managers, factory managers and other key informants, and 63 factory workers from 12 firms in the Katunayake EPZ. The interviews and focus groups in English were transcribed and coded into themes arising from the literature and further developed from the transcripts. Initial codes were analysed to identify common themes across the data set.

HR managers were acutely aware of the competitive pressures facing the EPZ garment factories. While examples of company welfarism were evident, HR practices such as incentive payment systems and the management of employee absences reinforced a workplace environment of long hours, work intensification and occupational injury.

This paper goes some way towards filling the gap in our understanding of the roles played by HR managers in garment factories in the Global South, raising theoretical debates regarding the potential for HR managers in developing countries to distance themselves from the negative consequences of HR practices such as individual and team reward systems.

Despite being increasingly touted as the kind of fundamental transformation needed for union survival, “community unionism” is typically ill‐defined and poorly explained. This paper seeks to provide greater precision of terminology and context through a series of geographically‐informed historical studies.

Through explaining and synthesising the work of a number of scholars from different disciplines, the paper develops a framework for a “geo‐historical” analysis. It begins not with community unionism as such but with a more open exploration of the relationship between unions and social formations at, for the most part, the local scale. Empirical material, based on original qualitative studies, is presented for one industry, Australian mining, across different places and time periods but concentrating most upon the iron ore regions in Western Australia where recent struggles over union renewal and form have been particularly intense.

This paper argues two things about community unionism: that this union form is not without historical antecedents and, more importantly, that its structure, nature and prospects can be better understood if analysed through a number of concepts which geographers have recently developed to explore the intersections between work, community and employment relations. More needs to be done to explain not only the nature and emergence of community unionism but also the very real problems it faces in sustaining itself, let alone transforming union movements overall. The findings point to the varied forms which so‐called community unionism may take as well as to the challenges to its current forms, including from within the labour movement itself.

The value of the paper lies in its theoretical innovation, drawing on a range of disciplines, and its attempt to situate community unionism precisely – conceptually, historically and geographically.

In the last two decades, the fashion value chain traveled to developing parts of the world. To these nations, it paved a path for socio-economic development initially but lately, the aftermath has costed more. This article visualizes the gains and losses of fast fashion to these countries.

An in-depth systematic literature review was performed to analyze the secondary data from academic journals and reports from international organizations. The authors have compiled their empirical journeys in academia, research and industry from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) based on Schon's (1983, 1990) theory of reflective practice. Further on, the article is structured using the value chain analysis (VCA) method which visualizes the aftermath of mass-producing fashion for the developed countries.

In this research it was found that LMICs have made substantial economic progress in the past two decades, however at a high social and environmental cost. It is the right time to find a balance between economic development and harm caused to the citizens of these nations.

At the moment the existing academic literature talks about unsustainable practices in the fashion sector around the world. This research precisely targets the LMICs where the aftermath is supposed to be much more severe. Further, it provides solutions and urges these nations to bring a substantial change throughout the value chain for a robust future.

Australia has struggled to escape its particular variant of the ‘resource curse’. It has also had important economic, social and political ramifications. In this chapter, the authors consider how the recently announced Net Zero Economy Authority in Australia is progressing, but crucially, the authors want to put these developments into a broader context within which it exists. This context includes Australia’s ‘resource’ curse challenges but also the emergence of a new state capitalism (Alami, 2023; Schindler et al., 2023) that has included a Future Made in Australia policy that involves advancing a renewable energy industry but also a militarisation of industry associated with the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK and USA (AUKUS). The authors begin by looking at the continued tensions between Australia’s fossil-fuel dependence and efforts to combat climate change and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The authors then track developments in the proposed structure and activity of the Net Zero Authority itself. Finally, the authors will review these developments in the light of the ‘resource curse’ and broader Australian government policy such as the AUKUS alliance and the ‘Made in Australia’ policy.

Utilizing data drawn from 18 in-depth case studies the authors explore in detail the factors shaping employment in a diverse range of Irish small- and medium-sized enterprises. Existing theory in HRM is deemed inadequate in capturing the complexity of HRM in SMEs especially as it treats organizations as hermetically sealed entities. In an effort to animate the criticism directed at normative models of HRM the authors use a conceptual framework with an emergent, open systems theoretical proposition to examine the parameters, dynamics and determining factors of HRM at each of the case study companies. The results show that the notion of a normative HRM model was not coherent in terms of actual practices but rather reactive, and emergent HRM-related processes were often imposed to meet legislative requirements or to reinforce owner–manager legitimacy and control. The authors conclude that an appreciation of the interaction between structural factors both inside and outside the immediate work milieu is crucial if the heterogeneity of HRM in SMEs is to be adequately accommodated and understood.

This study aims to investigate the manufacturing reshoring decision-making content from an Eclectic Paradigm perspective.

Data were collected through a six-step systematic literature review on factors influencing manufacturing reshoring decision-making. The review is based on 100 peer-reviewed journal papers discussing reshoring decision-making contents published from 2009 to 2022.

In total, 80 decision factors were extracted and then categorized into resource-seeking (8%), market-seeking (11%), efficiency-seeking (41%) and strategic asset-seeking (16%) advantages. Additionally, 24% of these were identified as hybrid, which means that they were classified into multiple categories. Some decision factors were further identified as reshoring influencing factors (i.e. drivers, enablers and barriers).

Scholars need to consider what other theories can be used or developed to identify and evaluate the decision factors (determinants) of manufacturing reshoring as well as how currently adopted theory can be further advanced to create clearer and comprehensive theoretical frameworks.

This research underscores the importance of developing clearer and more comprehensive theoretical frameworks. For practitioners, understanding the multifaceted nature of decision factors could enhance strategic decision-making regarding reshoring initiatives.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the value and practicality of the Eclectic Paradigm in categorizing factors in manufacturing reshoring decision-making content and presents in-depth theoretical classifications. In addition, it bridges the gap between decision factors and influencing factors in the decision-making content research realm.

The purpose of this paper is to question some of the assumptions underlying the new localism. To address the issue it will be necessary to construct a more sensitive approach to global structuring, before issues affecting the local economy can be addressed. In particular, I want to argue that the increasing prevalence of merger and joint venture activity, on an international scale, coupled with new JIT buyer‐supplier relations is not, of necessity, going to lead to a new localised geography of production, nor are small firms going to gain from this process. Local economies are unlikely to take on a dramatically more robust or independent character; a state of play widely recognised before flexible specialisation ever emerged.