ABSTRACT
The global environment has changed substantially. The financial crisis, economic internationalisation, regionalisation and trade integration have been important factors in configuring domestic and international responses to these changes. While domestic markets are central to our understanding of development, patterns of production, value added and consumption transcend national boundaries. By nature of their outsourcing networks, employment structures and trans cending national boundaries, global production networks (GPNs) and global value chains (GVCs) challenge traditional reference points in the practice of human resource management and the enforcement of internationally agreed labour standards. What emerges is not just a need to understand why national regulatory frameworks are being reconfigured but how the politics of employment and labour protection transcend borders to re-establish the state and public responsibility as a central concern in our understanding the rights and management of labour.
