Furnishing a Globalized World: Local Distinctiveness in the International Furniture Industry

Advances in technology, communication, and transportation over the past thirty years have led to tighter linkages and enhanced collaboration across traditional borders between nations, institutions, and cultures. This thesis uses the furniture industry as a lens to examine the impacts of globalization on individual countries and companies as they interact on an international scale. Using global value chain analysis and international trade data, I break down the furniture production process and explore how countries have specialized in particular stages of production to differentiate themselves from competitors and maximize the benefits of global involvement. Through interviews with company representatives and evaluation of branding strategies such as advertisements, webpages, and partnerships, I investigate across four country cases how furniture companies construct strong brands in an effort to stand out as unique to consumers with access to products made around the globe. Branding often serves to highlight distinctiveness and associate companies with national identities, thus revealing that in today’s globalized and interconnected society, local differences and diversity are more significant than ever.

Introduction: The apparel industry and North American economic integration

The economic and social consequences of international trade agreements have become a major area of inquiry in development studies in recent years. As evidenced by the energetic protests surrounding the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 1999 and the controversy about China's admission to the WTO, such agreements have also become a focus of political conflict in both the developed and developing countries. At issue are questions of job gains and job losses in different regions, prices paid by consumers, acceptable standards for wages and working conditions in transnational manufacturing industries, and the quality of the environment. All these concerns have arisen with regard to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and can be addressed through an examination of changes in the dynamics of the apparel industry in the post-NAFTA period.1 In this book, we examine the evolution of the apparel industry in North America in order to address some of these questions as they pertain to North America, with an eye toward the broader implications of our findings. We also consider the countries of the Caribbean Basin and Central America, whose textile and apparel goods are now allowed to enter the U.S. market on the same basis as those from Canada and Mexico (Odessey 2000). © 2009 by Temple University Press. All rights reserved.

NAFTA and uneven development in the North American apparel industry

The various contributions to this book have documented how NAFTA-inspired firm strategies are changing the geography of apparel production in North America. The authors show in myriad ways how companies at different positions along the apparel commodity chain are responding to the new institutional and regulatory environment that NAFTA creates. By making it easier for U.S. companies to take advantage of Mexico as a nearby low-cost site for export-oriented apparel production, NAFTA is deepening the regional division of labor within North America, and this process has consequences for firms and workers in each of the signatory countries. In the introduction to this book we alluded to the obvious implications of shifting investment and trade patterns in the North American apparel industry for employment in the different countries. In this concluding chapter we focus on Mexico in the NAFTA era, specifically the extent to which Mexico's role in the North American economy facilitates or inhibits its economic development. W e begin with a discussion of the contemporary debate about Mexico's development, which turns on the question of how to assess the implications of Mexico's rapid and pro-found process of economic reform. Second, we focus on the textile and apparel industries as sectors that have been significantly affected by changes in regulatory environments at both the global and regional levels. Third, we examine the evidence regarding Mexico's NAFTA-era export dynamism, and in particular we emphasize the importance of interfirm networks, both for making sense of Mexico's meteoric rise among apparel exporters and for evaluating the implications of this dynamism for development. Fourth, we turn to a consideration of the national political-economic environment that shapes developmental outcomes for all Mexicans. Although regional disparities within Mexico are profound, aspects of government policy, such as management of the national currency, and characteristics of the institutional environment, such as industrial relations, have nationwide effects, and critics of NAFTA charge that these factors are contributing to a process of economic and social polarization that is ever more evident (Morales 1999; Dussel Peters 2000). Finally, we suggest that the mixed consequences of Mexico's NAFTA-era growth can be taken as emblematic of the contradictions that the process of globalization poses for economic and social development. The anti-sweatshop campaign in North America is one example of transnational or crossborder movements that are emerging to address the negative consequences of this process. In bringing attention to the problem of sweatshop production in North America, activists are developing strategies that rely on a network logic that is not dissimilar to the approaches reflected in the various chapters of this book. © 2009 by Temple University Press. All rights reserved.

An intelligent assistant for design and material engineers in the submarine cable industry

This paper describes an industrial application of case-based reasoning in engineering. The application involves an integration of case-based reasoning (CBR) retrieval techniques with a relational database. The database is specially designed as a repository of experiential knowledge and with the CBR application in mind such as to include qualitative search indices. The application is for an intelligent assistant for design and material engineers in the submarine cable industry. The system consists of three components; a material classifier and a database of experiential knowledge and a CBR system is used to retrieve similar past cases based on component descriptions. Work has shown that an uncommon retrieval technique, hierarchical searching, well represents several search indices and that this techniques aids the implementation of advanced techniques such as context sensitive weights. The system is currently undergoing user testing at the Alcatel Submarine Cables site in Greenwich. Plans are for wider testing and deployment over several sites internationally.

The world nuclear industry status report 2009: with particular emphasis on economic issues

A detailed review of the status of the world nuclear industry with particular emphasis on economic aspects.

2009 world nuclear industry status report

Although some countries plan to build new nuclear power plants in the near future, in aggregate the data indicates that nuclear power's influence will continue to dwindle across the globe in coming decades.

Satellite monitoring of harmful algal blooms (HABs) to protect the aquaculture industry

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) can cause sudden and considerable losses to fish farms, for example 500,000 salmon during one bloom in Shetland, and also present a threat to human health. Early warning allows the industry to take protective measures. PML's satellite monitoring of HABs is now funded by the Scottish aquaculture industry. The service involves processing EO ocean colour data from NASA and ESA in near-real time, and applying novel techniques for discriminating certain harmful blooms from harmless algae. Within the AQUA-USERS project we are extending this capability to further HAB species within several European countries.