Choose ONE from the following questions 1. Critically evaluate the policy of clustering of knowledge and creative work as advocated by Richard Florida. 2. Does automation mean the elimination of jobs or rather the creation of new forms of collaboration between human and machines? 3. The new economic nationalism asserts that work and employment should flow back from developing countries to developed ones. Critically discuss the idea of ‘reshodng’ of work. 4. Some suggest that maintaining ‘reputation’ of the firm or brand, will ensure that major retailers, such as Gap or Marks & Spencer, have a vested interest in ensuring fair labour standards are maintained in international value or commodity chains. What are the problems of this approach? 5. Using the case of Japanese companies, critically discuss the role of Multinational Companies as a vehicle for transferring new work and employment practices between countries. 6. ‘Globalisation has been built upon the mobility of labour, which creates a win-win scenario for employers, states and workers’. Critically discuss this statement. 7. -Fordism integrated work and workers into a high wage, high productivity system. Neo-liberalism, has created fragmentation of work and employment and a polarisation between good jobs and bad”. Is it possible to return to the Fordist model? 8. Governments in developed economies are advocating creative and knowledge work to replace jobs lost through out-sourcing and automation. How feasible is this as an industrial strategy? Your answer should also discuss the quality of work in the creative industries. 9. Do Multinational companies from emerging economies, such as China, represent a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of working conditions and a threat to established norms of work and employment in advanced capitalist countries?
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