Academic Publication (IAS)

In the last three decades, labour casualization has become synonymous with Public Service reform in many developing countries. Reforms were meant to restructure and streamline public service delivery by establishing a more flexible workforce. Yet, labour casualization brings with it significant uncertainties such as diminished security of tenure, minimal employment protections and no guarantee of long-term employment prospects. The following paper considers the structural impact of casualization on labour relations and the ways in which it influences the effectiveness of public service delivery. It argues that despite popular views about the advantages of labour casualization, it is less than beneficial to public service delivery in the long-run. The levels of precariousness generated by excessive labour casualization are more likely than not to undercut morale and stifle the ability of public service workers to carry out their roles effectively.

The production, dissemination and utilization of knowledge are essential for development and the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT) is a precondition for developing a knowledge society. Countries, regions and populations are, however, divided, in terms of access to ICT. Socio-economic indicators on Brazil, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, the Netherlands and Germany are used to show that the existing global digital divide and the knowledge gap are widening between developing countries and the industrial countries and within individual nations. The moral and cultural issues of the digital divide and the knowledge gap are identified. Access to primary education and the acquisition of reading and writing skills is a basic human right and an internal digital divide between those that have access to further knowledge and others without access is unjust and not acceptable. Furthermore a civilization needs “meta-narratives” as a common ground, an anchorage for basic cultural values, which have to be disseminated, known and accepted by all members of a society to avoid violent conflict, fundamentalisms of various kinds and alienation. Some countries have embarked on an ambitious plan to close the digital divide and to use knowledge as a base for economic development, by-passing earlier stages of industrialization. Some commentators have, in contrast, asserted that it is doubtful that closing the digital divide will let developing countries leapfrog to higher levels of development as the knowledge economy will deepen the digital divide between regions and populations and actually expand the gap between rich and poor. The paper discusses this controversy by arguing that global knowledge has to be localized and local knowledge utilized in developing a knowledge society. If it seems unlikely that the digital gap between developing and developed countries will be closed completely at least narrowing the gap at the lower end should be targeted. For this purpose minimal standards of “basic digital needs” should be formulated.

Foreign direct investment is supposed to stimulate economic growth through the transfer of new technical knowledge and product innovation. This paper deals with the knowledge flow within the Japanese automotive supply chain catalysed by the keiretsu network in Indonesia. For this purpose, we analyse the character of the keiretsu and we trace how the knowledge flow is managed via the vertical linkage between manufacturers and suppliers within an industrial cluster. By doing so, we intend to contribute to the growing literature on industrial upgrading of the global production network and the use of knowledge for innovation and development. Based on our qualitative study, we show that the process of industrial upgrading is cumbersome for the automotive supplier companies in Indonesia. This is partly due to the fiscal incentive based policy of the Indonesian government and at the micro level due to the keiretsu as an institution, whereby knowledge flow is mediated by the restrictive practices of the supplier development programme.