Labor Contestation at Walmart Brazil〈1st ed. 2021〉 : Limits of Global Diffusion in Latin America

著者名：Martin, Scott B./Veiga, João Paulo Cândia/Galhera, Katiuscia Moreno

Palgrave Pivot（2021/09/10発売）

• 言語：ENG
• ISBN：9783030746711
• eISBN：9783030746728

Description

This book explores how and why the labor practices of the world’s largest employer, supermarket giant Walmart, were contested by unions and government regulators as it expanded to Latin America starting in the 1990s. With an in-depth case study of Brazil, and a comparative chapter examining Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, this book analyzes the problematic encounter between diffusion of home-office anti-labor practices and evolving national institutional contexts that are quite varied and in some cases enable considerable resistance by unions and/or regulators. Walmart’s “repressive familial” and “anti-union” model is found to generate costs and conflicts that contributed to its unprofitability and ultimate exit from Brazil in 2018. This experience, contrasted with country situations where Walmart’s overall competitive and labor and human resource practices “fit” better with national markets and institutions, underlines the brittle, problematic nature of diffusionist corporate models lacking adaptive capacity to significant cross-national variations across host countries.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Labor Contestation at Walmart in Latin America as Test Case of Global Diffusion by Multinationals.- 2. Mediations of Global Diffusion: Walmart Meets National Institutions and Nested Agents.- 3. Testing Distant Waters: Walmart’s Early Years in Brazil, 1995-2002.- 4. Expansion, Conflictual Cooperation, and Rising Legal Scrutiny: 2003-2014.- 5. Divergent National Patterns of Labor Contestation: Comparisons with Argentina, Chile, and Mexico.- 6. Labor Contestation Amidst Restructuring, Flexible Labor Reforms, and Walmart’s Exit from Brazil, 2015-2018.- 7. Conclusion: Failed Global Diffusion, Walmart’s  Exit, and National Institutions.