International Political Economy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

International Political Economy - Essay Example (Ttreault and Abel, 1998: p. 3). With reference to the material reality individual actors are expected to be pursuing their self-interest through bargaining and the interplay of the market. (Ttreault and Abel, 1998: p. 3). Similarly considering the ideological reality one would expect to see a multi-faceted order and its potential for improving overall production and wealth skewed in various ways to provide different sorts of short-term advantages for those who can manipulate the system to conform to specific goals. (Ttreault and Abel, 1998: p. 3). For instance the flow of resources, the availability of money as well as the cost of doing business can be manipulated, even by weak countries if they seize the right moment. While the material reality may be evolving toward a complex interactive system, such an outcome serves to justify and describe one way or another to rig the system to a particular advantage rather than to structure a mutually beneficial international economic order likely to raise overall global wea lth but unlikely to generate individual distinction or preeminence for particular countries. (Ttreault and Abel, 1998: p. 3). Dependency theory refer to a set of theories, which maintained that third world countries fail to attain adequate and sustainable levels of development as a result of their dependence on the advanced capitalist economies. (Scott and Marshall, 2005). Built upon Lenin's theories of imperialism, the theory focused upon the economic penetration of the third world particularly Latin America by the large capitalist economies. (Lievesley, 2003). Dependency theory was developed in 1960 and called into question the structural developmentalism associated with Raul Presbish as well as the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), which emerged in 1948 in Santiago, Chile. (Lievesley, 2003). According to the ECLA, the world was regarded as divided into center (the developed, industrialized North) and the periphery (the underdeveloped agricultural South) and the relationship between them was determined by the structure of the world economy. (Lievesley, 2003). The economy of Latin America concentrated on the production of primary inputs for export to the developed industrialized North. Presbish later discovered that instead of a mutually advantageous relationship between North and South, there was an unequal exchange with Latin American economies facing a long-term secular decline in their terms of trade thereby resulting in a chronic balance of payment deficits with the periphery having to export more and more in order to maintain the same levels of manufactured imports. (Lievesley, 2003). The figure in the following page represents the relationship between the developed industrialized North and the underdeveloped agricultural south. Figure 1. Dependency Theory Core/Metropolitan Centre Power Development Unequal Exchange Periphery Under development Marginal = Dependency Theory Source: Lecture Notes. Frank, a German Economist of development was the major contributor to dependency theory who in his book Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (1967), concentrated upon the external mechanisms of control exerted by the centre (or metropole) upon the periphery (or satellite). (Lievesley, 2003; Scott and Marshal, 2005). The centre maintained the periphery in a state of underdevelopment for

Human Resource Management has evolved significantly over recent Assignment

Human Resource Management has evolved significantly over recent decades with an increasing emphasis on contributing to business - Assignment Example The introduction of globalization and the subsequent growth of cross cultural business made a further name change in the employee management department. Now, instead of HRM, Strategic HRM is prominent in the organizational world. Employees are the backbone of any organization. Even though an organization has many other resources, human resources are the most important ones. All the other organizational resources such as machines, money and materials, need the supervision from human resources for proper utilization or mobilization. This paper evaluates different approaches in strategic human resource management (SHRM) and describes the positioning of SHRM in contemporary context. Introduction According to Bratton & Gold (2012), â€Å"Labour is not a commodity. It is people in work organizations who sets overall strategies and goals, design work systems, produce goods and services, monitor quality, allocate financial resources and market the product and services† (p.8). Even tho ugh an organization has many internal and external resources, none of them has the ability to act independently except the human resources. In other words, all the organizational resources can be mobilized properly only under the control of human resources. There is nothing wrong in saying that HR can make or break an organization. Boddy (2008) defines Human Resource Management (HRM) as â€Å"the effective use of human resources in order to enhance organizational performance† (p.354). Because of globalization, majority of the prominent companies are currently operating cross culturally. Outsourcing and offshoring like modern business principles were evolved out as a result of globalization. Exploitation of cheap labor is vital for an organization for staying competitive in the market. Moreover, diverse workforce is common in most of the modern organizations. Management of diverse workforce necessitates restructuring or modifications of many of the existing HRM principles. Ins tead of HRM, SHRM is common in most of the modern organizations. According to Bratton (N.d.), â€Å"Strategic human resource management is the process of linking the human resource function with the strategic objectives of the organization in order to improve performance†(p.37). The ability to stay competitive determines the success and failures of modern organizations. The way of doing business in the past and present are entirely different. SHRM helps organizations to formulate strategies suitable for the changing principles in the organizational world. Different approaches and models are prevailing in the organizational world with respect to the implementation of SHRM. Different approaches in strategic human resource management (SHRM) According to Bratton (N.d.), â€Å"Strategic HRM’ is an outcome: ‘as organizational systems designed to achieve sustainable competitive advantage through people’† (p.46). For example, plenty of American companies ar e currently struggling in international market, not because of the poor quality of the products they produced, but because of the huge price of these products compared to the prices of products from competitors. It should not be forgotten that America is a country in which manpower cost is extremely high. On the other hand, China and India are countries in which manpower cost is extremely low. Nobody has any doubt about the technological dominance of American companies. However, expensive labor preventing American companies from competing effectively in the global market. Currently,