Work in the Global Economy
Work in the Global Economy is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal that promotes understanding of work, and connections to work, in all forms and dimensions. This can mean a focus on labour processes, labour markets, labour organising and labour reproduction. The editors welcome wide-ranging contributions that extend and deepen connections between all aspects of the division of labour: from the production networks that underpin the global economy, to the gendered and racial divides that shape how work is allocated and organised. Read more about Work in the Global Economy.
Frequency: March, July and November
Volume 5 (2025): Issue 1 (Mar 2025)
Gender and Justice is open for submissions!
Be one of the first to publish in this new journal advancing critical feminist scholarship on justice.
Gender and Justice is open for submissions!
Be one of the first to publish in this new journal advancing critical feminist scholarship on justice.
Aims and scope
Abstracting and Indexing
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Testimonials
Contact us
Aims and scope
Work in the Global Economy is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal that promotes understanding of work, and connections to work, in all forms and dimensions. This can mean a focus on labour processes, labour markets, labour organising and labour reproduction. The editors welcome wide-ranging contributions that extend and deepen connections between all aspects of the division of labour: from the production networks that underpin the global economy, to the gendered and racial divides that shape how work is allocated and organised.
The journal is associated with, and rooted in, the traditions of the International Labour Process Conference (ILPC) which was established in 1983. The labour process tradition reflects certain priorities, including analysis of the pathways between capitalist political economy and the changing workplace; the centrality of work and its management and regulation to economy and society; and the development of a variety of materialist understandings of those principals.
However, like the conference, the journal adopts a pluralist approach to theory, method and discipline. We also encourage contributions from both emerging and existing scholars. Foregrounding the diverse interests that compose labour and capital in the Global South and North, the journal promotes interdisciplinary and international agendas that have broad appeal to scholars and students of the sociology of work, employment relations and human resource management, organisational studies, political economy, labour geography, labour history and development studies.
We recognise that the journal is being launched at a time of profound change in economy and society that impact on work and employment. Consequently, Work in the Global Economy will be at the forefront of analytical and policy debates exploring issues such as digitalisation, automation, climate change and global health crisis as sites of contestation and transformation.
The journal has an independent editorial structure that reflects geographic, disciplinary and social diversity. We are committed to delivering an intellectually rigorous, supportive and fair reviewing process that can strengthen the vitality and engagement of academic communities.
Abstracting and Indexing
Work in the Global Economy is included in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2024
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion statement outlines the ways in which we seek to ensure that equity, diversity and inclusion are integral to all aspects of our publishing, and how we might encourage and drive positive change.
Testimonials
“Amid the resurgence of interest in work and labour around the world, this new journal, with its impressive editorial team, is a promising addition to the field.”
Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, City University of New York Graduate Center, USA
“The future of work in the global economy is a very hot topic that needs the serious scholarship, grounded in the nature of work and the labour process, that this new journal will provide.”
Jill Rubery, Professor of Comparative Employment Systems, University of Manchester, UK
“At last! A much-needed high-quality, interdisciplinary, international and critical journal covering all aspects of labouring in the global economy.”
Neil Martin Coe, Professor of Economic Geography, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore
Contact us
Editorial enquiries:
Editorial team: editors.workintheglobaleconomy@gmail.com
Open Access, subscriptions and free trials:
Bristol University Press: bup-journals@bristol.ac.uk
Read our instructions for authors for guidance on how to prepare your submissions. The instructions include the following:
What are we looking for?
How to submit an article
Ethical guidelines
Copyright and permissions
Style
Alt-text
References
English language editing service
Open Access
Self-archiving and institutional repositories
How to maximise the impact of your article
Contact us
Visit our journal author toolkit for resources and advice to support you through the publication process and beyond.
What are we looking for?
The journal aims to publish original contributions that broaden our understanding of ‘work in the global economy’ (please see the journal's aims and scope for a fuller discussion). Work in the Global Economy welcomes the following contributions:
- Research articles:
We welcome the submission of papers that advance understanding of ‘work in the global economy’ and draw upon empirical findings to support and develop theory. Papers that forge interdisciplinary linkages through their empirical, conceptual and theoretical content are especially welcome. The editors also encourage papers that propose new conceptual and theoretical approaches; papers based upon rigorous qualitative and/or quantitative research methods; and accounts which demonstrate innovation in furthering our understanding of work in the contemporary political economy.
Papers submitted to the journal are normally 7,000 to 9,500 words in length. This word limit includes all text in the article (abstract, title page, keywords, acknowledgements) but excludes references and any appendices. Abstracts should be a maximum of 250 words. Submissions that exceed this word limit may be returned for reduction prior to review.
- Theory into practice:
The journal will contain a section called ‘Theory into practice’. Within this section, we welcome shorter papers of 6,000 words (excluding references and tables) from academics (possibly with practitioner and/or activist co-authors) exploring how the theoretical underpinnings of their research have impacted upon practice, or how theoretical ideas have made a difference on the ground. The focus of these shorter pieces could range from policy-driven interventions to more activist campaigns at the workplace, organisational or global level. Contributions to Theory into practice will be also subject to the peer-review process.
Supporting Early Career Researchers: Particular attention will be placed on supporting Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to secure publication in the journal (subject to the normal reviewing process). We ask ECRs to indicate their status upon submission to facilitate this. We define ECRs as an individual within eight years of the award of their PhD or within six years of their first academic appointment.
Promoting diversity: We expect authors to problematise race, ethnicity and gender and to reflect diversity in terms of citations and references.
How to submit an article
All submissions should be made online at the Work in the Global Economy Editorial Manager website: https://www.editorialmanager.com/wge/default.aspx.
Please ensure you follow the below anonymisation and formatting guidelines.
Initial manuscript submission via Editorial Manager
Manuscripts must be in Word or Rich Text Format (not pdf). New users should first create an account, specify their areas of interest and provide full contact details.
Preparing your anonymised manuscript
Your initial submission must consist of the following separate files:
- A cover page including: the article title, author name(s) and affiliations (institution affiliation and country only, no department details required), the article abstract up to 250 words, up to five key words/short phrases and the article word count. A cover page template is available to download here.
- A fully anonymised manuscript which does not include any of the information included in the cover page. It should not include any acknowledgements, funding details or conflicts of interest that would identify the author(s). References to the author's own work should be anonymised as follows: 'Author's own, [year]'. If submitted by e-mail, the file should not have any document properties or personal information that would identify the author(s) (see guidance on how to remove hidden data and personal information from a Microsoft Office file for further help). Please note that submissions that have not been sufficiently anonymised will be returned.
- If you have any figures and tables, these must be uploaded as separate files at the end of the manuscript. Please indicate where they should be placed in the text by inserting ‘Figure X here’ and provide numbers, titles and sources where appropriate. If submitted by e-mail, these files should not have any document properties or personal information that would identify the author(s) (see guidance on how to remove hidden data and personal information from a Microsoft Office file for further help).
- In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. Guidance on how to write this is available here: Bristol University Press | Alt-text guidance for authors.
For help submitting an article via Editorial Manager, please view our online tutorial.
Once a submission has been conditionally accepted, you will be invited to submit a final, non-anonymised version via Editorial Manager.
Checklist: what to include in your final non-anonymised manuscript:
A cover page including:
- Title: short and concise running title and, if necessary, a (short) informative subtitle;
- Author names and affiliations;
- Abstract: no longer than 250 words, outlining the central question, approach/method, findings and take-home message;
- Up to five keywords.
The main manuscript including:
- The non-anonymised text of your article: please ensure this does not exceed the maximum word count for your article type (9,000 words for Research Articles; 6,000 words for Theory into practice articles).
- Funding details: list any funding including the grant numbers you have received for the research covered in your article as follows: ‘This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].’
- Conflict of interest statement: please declare any possible conflicts of interest, or state ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’ if there are none.
- Acknowledgements: acknowledge people who have provided you with any substantial assistance or advice with collecting the data, developing your ideas, editing or any other comments to develop your argument or text.
- Research ethics statement: Please provide a brief discussion of the ethical issues relevant to your paper and advise if any clearance was granted by your institution or an external ethics committee. We recognise that not all institutions provide or require formal ethics approval processes – please specify whether this applies in your case.
- Figures and tables: should be submitted as separate files. Figures should ideally be in an Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) file format. Please indicate where figures and tables should be placed in the text by inserting ‘Figure/Table X here’ and provide numbers, titles and sources (where appropriate).
- In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. Guidance on how to write this is available here: Bristol University Press | Alt-text guidance for authors.
- Supplementary data: We recommend that any supplemental data is hosted in a data repository (such as figshare) for maximum exposure, and is cited as a reference in the article.
- Journal Contributor Publishing Agreement: please upload a scanned copy of the completed and signed agreement with your final non-anonymised manuscript. The Journal Contributor Publishing Agreement can be downloaded here.
Editorial review process
All submissions are first desk-reviewed by the editor(s) who will assess whether the manuscript fits the aims and scope as well as the quality standards of the journal. Research articles that are selected to be sent out for review will be evaluated through double anonymous peer review by at least two referees. Work in the Global Economy aims to return the reviews along with an initial decision within two months of submission.
Please also see our Journals editorial policies.
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Ethical guidelines
At Bristol University Press we are committed to upholding the highest standards of review and publication ethics in our journals. Bristol Univeristy Press is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE), and will take appropriate action in cases of possible misconduct in line with COPE guidelines.
Find out more about our ethical guidelines.
Copyright and permissions
Work in the Global Economy is published by Bristol University Press. Articles are considered for publication on the understanding that on acceptance the author(s) grant(s) Bristol University Press the exclusive right and licence to publish the article. Copyright remains with the author(s) or other original copyright owners and we will acknowledge this in the copyright line that appears on the published article.
Authors will be asked to sign a journal contributor agreement to this effect, which should be submitted online along with the final manuscript. All authors should agree to the agreement. For jointly authored articles the corresponding author may sign on behalf of co-authors provided that they have obtained the co-authors' consent. The journal contributor agreement can be downloaded here.
Where copyright is not owned by the author(s), the corresponding author is responsible for obtaining the consent of the copyright holder. This includes figures, tables and excerpts. Evidence of this permission should be provided to Bristol University Press. General information on rights and permissions can be found here.
To request permission to reproduce any part of articles published in Work in the Global Economy, please email: bup-permissions@bristol.ac.uk.
For information on what is permissible use for different versions of your article, please see our policy on self archiving and institutional repositories.
Style
- British English spelling and punctuation is preferred.
- Non-discriminatory language is mandatory. See our guidelines to sensitive language (appendix C of document).
- Explanatory notes should be kept to a minimum. If it is necessary to use them, they must be numbered consecutively in the text and listed at the end of the article. Please do not embed notes in the text.
- Please do not embed bibliographic references in the text, footnotes, live links or macros; the final submitted file should be clear of track changes and ready for print.
- Tables and charts should be separated from the text and submitted in a Word or Excel file, with their placement in the text clearly indicated by inserting: ‘Table X here’. Please provide numbers, titles and sources (where appropriate).
- Figures, diagrams and maps should be separated from the text and, ideally, submitted in an Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) file. Figures created in Word or Excel are acceptable in those file formats. If the figures, diagrams and maps are in other formats (i.e. have been pasted into a Word file rather than created in it) please contact bup-journalsproduction@bristol.ac.uk for advice. Please indicate where figures should be placed in the text, by inserting ‘Figure X here’ and provide numbers, titles and sources (where appropriate).
Alt-text
In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. See our guidance on writing alt-text.
References
To ensure your bibliography is complete before submitting your final article, we recommend using a reference manager such as Zotero when writing your article. If you cannot find the style under the specific Bristol University Press journal name, the closest format is Zotero "Consumption and Society".
Policy Press uses a custom version of the Harvard system of referencing:
- In-text citations: give the author’s surname followed by year of publication in brackets;
- If there is more than one reference to the same author and year, this should be distinguished by a, b, c, d and so on being added to the year.
- In lists of references given within the text, place in chronological order, from old to new. For example (Smith, 1989; Jones, 1990; Amler, 2002; Brown, 2007).
- List all references in full at the end of the article and remove any references not cited in the text;
- Names should be listed in the references as cited, for example, surnames containing de, De, de la, Le, van, von, Van, Von should be listed under ‘D’, ‘L’ and ‘V’ respectively. If in doubt, check the author ORCID or a recognised database such as Scopus or Web of Science to verify their most known surname.
- For works with multiple authors, list all names up to six. For works with more than six authors, list the first six names followed by ‘et al’.
- Book and journal titles should be in italics;
- Website details should be placed at the end of the reference;
- Ibid/op cit: please do not use; we would prefer that you repeated the information.
- Immediately before submitting your final version, check that all references cited in the text are in the bibliography and that references in the bibliography are cited correctly in the text.
Examples
Book:
Bengtson, V.L. and Lowenstein, A. (2003) Global Aging and its Challenge to Families, Transaction Publishers.
Darling, D. (2010) Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists, Policy Press.
Book with editor:
Bengtson, V.L. and Lowenstein, A. (eds) (2003) Global Aging and its Challenge to Families, 5th edn, Transaction Publishers.
Chapter in book or in multi-authored publication:
Bengtson, V.L. and Lowenstein, A. (2003) Citizenship in action: the lived experiences of citizens with dementia who campaign for social change, in R. Smith, R. Means and K. Keegan (eds) Global Aging and its Challenge to Families, Transaction Publishers, pp 305–26.
Journal reference:
Williamson, E. and Abrahams, H. A. (2014) A review of the provision of intervention programmes for female victims and survivors of domestic abuse in the UK, Journal of Women and Social Work, 29(1): 178-191. doi: doi.org/10.1177/0886109913516452
Jeffrey, C., Williams, E., de Araujo, P., Fortin-Rochberg, R., O'Malley, T., Hill, A-M., et al (2009) The challenge of politics, Policy & Politics, 36(4): 545–57. doi: doi.org/10.1177/0886108913516454
Website reference:
Womensaid (2016) What is domestic abuse?, https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/.
In memory of Stephen Bouquin, Professor of Sociology, l'Université d'Evry – Paris-Saclay
We not only lost Michael Burawoy last week, but we also got news of the death of the gifted French sociologist of work, Stephen Bouquin, who was a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of this journal. His death was apparently the result of a fall and he was only 57 years old. Stephen was one of the few French-speaking sociologists who closely followed labour process debates and in recent years had been an enthusiastic attender at ILPC, as can be seen in this informative and entertaining report of the Padua event. The editorial team were keen to use this enthusiasm and experience of debates in France and Belgium and recently invited him to be a member of the Advisory Board.
His account of the Padua conference was carried in the journal Le Mondes du Travail, which he co-founded in 2006 and directed until it ceased publication at the end of 2024. He also wrote an interesting account of the evolution of labour process debates focused on the UK for French readers (see here). He was particularly interested in the work that Stephen Ackroyd and I had done around organisational misbehaviour and was keen to bring some of its insights to French-speaking debates, translating and introducing materials for his journal in 2022. He had an extensive body of work in his own right as indicated on his university webpage.
Though Stephen worked in France, he was Belgian and had an extensive and prominent history of political activism on the Belgian left, as demonstrated in an obituary here on Gauche Anticapitaliste. Stephen will clearly be missed by many and the editorial team of Work in the Global Economy offers our condolences to his family, colleagues and friends.
Paul Thompson, Consulting Editor.
12 February 2025
Editorial Management Board
Giorgos Gouzoulis, Co-Editor in Chief, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Jean Jenkins, Co-Editor in Chief, Cardiff University, UK
Martin Krzywdzinski, Co-Editor in Chief, WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Germany
Donna Baines, Associate Editor, University of British Columbia, Canada
Rachel Cohen, Associate Editor, City St George’s, University of London, UK
Alina-Sandra Cucu, Associate Editor, ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Germany
Valeria Piro, Associate Editor, University of Padua, Italy
Paul Thompson, Consulting Editor, University of Stirling, UK
Editorial Advisory Board
Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, California State University, Long Beach, US
Mark Anner, Penn State University, US
Maurizio Atzeni, CONICET Center for Labor Studies and Research, Argentina
Kendra Briken, University of Strathclyde, UK
Paul Brook, University of Leicester, UK
Minjie Cai University of Birmingham, UK
Chris Chan, Royal Holloway University of London, UK
Gabriella Cioce, Sheffield University Management School, UK
Neil Coe, University of Sydney, Australia
Virginia Doellgast, Cornell Univeristy, US
Tony Dundon, University of Limerick, Ireland
Anita Hammer, King's College London, UK
Bill Harley,University of Melbourne, Australia
Katy Fox-Hodess, Sheffield University, UK
Johanna Hoffbauer, University of Vienna, Austria
Marta Kahancová, Central European Labour Studies Institute, Bratislava, Slovakia
Anne Kovalainen, University of Turku, Finland
Bridget Kenny, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Mingwei Liu, Rutgers University, US
Paula McDonald, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Siobhan McGrath, Clark University, US
Alessandra Mezzadri, SOAS University of London, UK
Sian Moore, Anglia Ruskin University, UK
Kirsty Newsome, University of Sheffield, UK
Pun Ngai, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong
Florence Palpacuer, University of Montpellier, France
Harry Pitts, University of Exeter, UK
Seppo Poutanen, University of Turku, Finland
Safak Tartanoglu-Bennett, University of Sheffield
Phil Taylor, University of Strathclyde, UK
Steven Vallas, Northeastern University, US
Alex Wood, University of Cambridge, UK
Call for papers: Themed Issue: Labour geographies of global production networks
Guest Editor: Oliver Pye, University of Bonn, Germany
Abstract deadline 30 April 2025, Submission deadline 15 September 2025
This themed issue aims to explore Global Production Networks (GPN) from a Labour Geography perspective. It starts from the observation that much of contemporary production – and therefore also work and labour processes – are organised in transnational commodity chains. The concept of GPN was developed from a critique of the Global Value Chain approach as being too narrowly focused on transactions between firms, and the implicit managerial perspective that this entailed. GPN scholarship insists on the social and political ‘horizontal’ embeddedness of ‘vertical’ production processes. In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have responded to calls to bring labour agency into the analysis of GPNs. From this perspective, GPNs link different labour regimes that have specific histories and spatialities and consist of networked groups of ‘embodied labour” with their own subjectivities and struggles.
From a Labour Geography perspective, on a very basic level, workers, not (only) capital, produce GPNs. Rather than mapping lead firms, suppliers, logistical hubs etc., as a managerial approach would, labour geographers view GPNs as geographically differentiated sets of linked antagonistic relations between labour and capital. Spatial restructuring is a terrain of class struggle, connected to geographically different rates of exploitation. Labour does not only respond to capital’s spatial strategies, capital has to react to successful labour organising and political regulation in particular regions of the world. Just as labour regimes based on coercion and consent can be seen as a response by capital to workers’ reluctance to perform as wage slaves, spatial strategies by capital (relocating, outsourcing, the commodification of new natural resources) are in part a response to spatial agency and organising by workers and their organisations.
One goal of the themed issue is to think through the spatial and geographical essence of GPNs – conceptually, empirically and politically – as groups of workers in specific places who are linked to each other through circuits of production, distribution and circulation. Factories, mines, plantations, offices, warehouses, supermarkets, hospitals, banks etc. are not only ‘fixed capital’ which is embedded for longer periods in specific places, but also workplaces made up of real people selling their labour power. The creation and constant transformation of any GPN is thus a history of struggles in these places. Similarly, the infrastructures connecting these places are not (only) roads, railways, ports, tankers etc. Doing the connecting are truck drivers, train drivers, dockers, sailors and other groups of workers. Understanding GPNs as places linked by networks in this way also applies to financial networks, which from a Labour Geography perspective are not ‘money’ but bank employees concentrated in geographical places who are in an antagonistic relation to hedge fund managers, investors, speculators etc. Another relevant spatial category is territoriality, as most GPNs are involved in resource extraction which expands into new landscapes, transforming the livelihoods of those living there and creating new groups of proletarians in the process. And GPNs combine different scales, from the scale of the body to the national scale, the latter which, via the state, is instrumental in regulating capital but also in creating and cementing new spatial inequalities at the global scale.
Recent advances in Labour Geography have begun to include feminist and ecological perspectives by systematically integrating processes of social reproduction into the analysis of spatial agency of workers and by emphasizing the ecological materiality of labour processes. This echoes the aspiration of the GPN approach which wishes to embed production sites within the environmental conditions of each particular place and within the ‘horizontal’ networks organising reproduction processes. Each node of a GPN consists of workers who have been ‘re/produced’ by women in a different space from where they end up working. This seems obvious but supply chain analysis does not usually include the side of social reproduction that makes GPNs possible. Thinking geographically about this would entail looking at how and where spaces of production and reproduction are linked. In this vein, a GPN should be analysed as Global Re/Production Networks (GRPNs). Similarly, the extraction, appropriation and metabolism of non-human-nature needs to be systematically integrated in the analysis.
This themed issue seeks to bring together conceptual papers that address GPN research in this way. Our view is that this is not an end in itself, but that a spatially informed analysis that starts to tell the history of GPNs as one of interlinked struggles by workers is a prerequisite for developing transnational organising strategies. In this way, we hope this issue contributes to a new labour transnationalism. There is a general consensus that the globalisation of production has tended to weaken and fragment the global labour movement. At the same time, the reorganisation of production in supply chains creates new vulnerabilities for capital and structural opportunities for labour. With Global labour unions such as IndustriALL, Global Framework Agreements, Transnational Union Networks, and new kinds of transnational campaigning, labour has started to respond to the challenges and new possibilities that GPNs offer. A systematic, spatial analysis of GPNs from a Labour Geography perspective could be a tool to develop more explicitly transnational organising strategies in the future.
Our overarching question is what Labour Geography can contribute to the analysis of Global Production Networks. We are particularly interested in the following questions:
- How can the multi-scalarity of GPNs be analysed as interlinked groups of workers in antagonistic relationship to capital?
- Is it possible to tell the story of GPNs as a history of struggles of spatially interlinked workers?
- How can we systematically integrate social reproduction and non-human nature into our analysis of GPNs?
- How are GPNs being restructured, spatially, digitally and what consequences does this have on different groups of workers and their struggles.
- How can a spatially informed analysis of GPNs be used to develop new, transnational organising strategies?
Please submit relevant abstracts to oliver.pye@uni-bonn.de by the 30th April 2025. Draft articles are expected by the 15th of September 2025. Publication of the themed issue is planned for September 2026. Please follow the WGE author instructions.
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