This innovative volume provides a comprehensive overview of the transformation of socio-economic practices in the global economy. The contributors offer analytical and comparative insights at the world level, with regard to the current socio-economic practices as well as an assessment of the overall economic globalization phenomenon in the global world. Through empirical case studies of different civilizations or cultures that describe situations of intertwining of local socio-economic practices and global economic modernity, this volume assesses the overall situation in the world, looking at the world as an economic system where some countries act as winners, others as losers and some as both winners and losers of economic globalization. This exceptional book will appeal to sociologists, social and cultural anthropologists, and economists interested in development.

Schuerkens is a Lecturer at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris (France)

1. Transformations of Local Socio-Economic Practices in a Global World: A Theoretical Approach and Some Empirical Evidence from Different World Regions 2. Contradictions of Social Responsibility: (German) Business Elites and Globalization 3. Negotiating Neo-Liberalism: Free-Market Reform in Central and Eastern Europe 4. Mobilizing International Auditing Standards in Arenas of Political and Economic Change in Post-Soviet Russia 5. China's Response to Globalization: Manufacturing Confucian Values 6. The Export of Cultural Commodities as Impression Management: The Case of Thailand 7. Informal and Formal Economy in Caracas: Street Vending and Globalization 8. Common Roots, Shared Traits, Joint Prospects?: On the Articulation of Multiple Modernities in Benin and Haiti 9. Rethinking 'Free-Trade' Practices in Contemporary Togo: Women Entrepreneurs in the Global Textile Trade 10. Outcomes and Perspectives