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Restructuring strategies, firms' size and atypical employment in the local productive system of Thessaloniki, Greece
Author(s) -
Gialis Stelios
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
industrial relations journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.525
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 1468-2338
pISSN - 0019-8692
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2338.2011.00627.x
Subject(s) - restructuring , backwardness , production (economics) , business , economic system , market economy , economic geography , economics , economic growth , finance , macroeconomics
Drawing upon an extended case study in six industrial sectors in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece this paper highlights that the transformation of the local production system is based on the locally specific interaction of two interrelated restructuring trajectories: a ‘weak’ strategy that is mainly associated to small/medium‐sized labour intensive enterprises and a ‘strong’ strategy which is fairly connected to large, increasingly internationalised firms. Both these strategies are found to be in need of cheap labour while they make use of the locally diversified atypical employment pools, though in different ways. In parallel, they presuppose a subordinated integration into subcontracting production systems that expands towards the regional, the Balkan and the international arena. The paper underlines that restructuring strategies in Thessaloniki, especially the prevailing ‘weak’ one, do not seem to alter the conditions of backwardness for the local productive system. Apart from leaving local structures poor in innovative production, automated machinery and non‐hierarchical networking practices they are largely based on diffused, poorly‐paid atypical employment.