Globalization and the Service Workplace

Abstract

The articles in this volume were part of a workshop on globalization and service work that took place at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. In attendance were scholars with an interest these questions and with interdisciplinary perspectives and diversity with respect to their countries of study.Participants came from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, South Korea, and Australia and were at various points in their academic careers. A broad array of disciplines were represented, including geography, industrial relations, anthropology, sociology, law, gender studies, and human resource management. The scope of industries studied consisted of health care, call centers, hotels, and restau-rants, and the countries studied included India, China, Africa, Canada, the United States, South Korea, and Australia. Ron Hira from the Rochester Institute of Technology, a leading expert on outsourcing, was the keynote speaker for the workshop, and Steven Frenkel from the Australian School of Business, a leading expert on the service work-force, concluded the workshop by identifying the themes that emerged from the pre-sentations and discussions.This special issue of the