Suchergebnisse

Using Acker's concept of 'inequality regimes', this article examines the practices and processes of gender inequality in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, highlighting the complex and subtle nature of discrimination sometimes at play and the strategies used by those who progress within this context. The project involved in-depth interviews during which participants recounted their career stories. Our research study examines the ways in which men and women in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter account for their careers in order to examine the underlying gender regimes that influence the everyday practices of workers in this context. Our findings suggest that contrary to contemporary images of the creative industries, jewellery making remains deeply traditional with structures and processes that both overtly and covertly disadvantage women workers. Empirically, this article enhances our understanding of the way that this creative cluster operates and examines how that disadvantages particular groups of workers. Theoretically, this article contributes to our knowledge of the use of the concept of gender regimes at a cluster level.

There has been limited coverage of the corporate responsibility (CR) practices of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the mainstream CR literature. Furthermore, there has been no systematic analysis of the responsibilities of the high value jewellery industry and jewellery SMEs in particular. This study explores the potential for harm and value creation by individual stakeholders in fine jewellery production. Using the harm chain and institutional theory to frame our investigation, we seek to understand how small businesses within the fine jewellery industry respond to the economic, social and environmental challenges associated with responsible jewellery production, and to investigate how they perceive and negotiate the tensions between responsibility and the resistance derived from the operational norms of secrecy and autonomy within the industry. Our exploratory research provides illustrative examples of how complex harm networks operate within and across the fine jewellery industry, and demonstrates the interrelationships that exist across the different stages of the fine jewellery harm chain. Findings suggest that institutional forces are coalescing towards a more responsible agenda for the fine jewellery industry. Moreover, while CR is a tool to disrupt harmful institutional norms and practices within such an industry, it requires the co-creation of new transformative business models and multi-stakeholder involvement including firms (SMEs and MNEs), trade associations, nongovernmental organisations and consumers. Solutions include national and international legislation, price adjusted certification routes for small firms, harmonisation of industry CR standards to reduce overlap in certification and regulation and gem and precious metal ''track and trace'' schemes.