Definitions: Global Commodity Chain, Permatemp, Virtual Workplace

This assignment defines several key concepts in business technology. It begins by explaining the "Global Commodity Chain," detailing the network of labor and production involved in creating a finished commodity, and its importance in international trade and economic integration. The assignment then defines a "Permatemp," a temporary employee working for an extended period, and differentiates between those employed by staffing agencies and those performing similar tasks as permanent employees without the same benefits. The concept of a "Virtual Workplace" is introduced as an environment not bound by physical space, connected technologically, and facilitating collaboration. Lastly, the assignment addresses "Distributed Work," which is the practice of employees communicating and working with colleagues in different locations globally, enabled by technological advancements. References to supporting research are also provided.

Running head: TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Global commodity chain:
A commodity chain can be defined as the entire network which deals with the labor as well as
the production procedures which ultimately helps in production of a finished commodity. This
definition was provided by Hopkins and Wallerstein in 1986. The main focus of global
commodity chain deals with the international trading system. It also deals with the increasing
trend of the economic integration of the productions which take place internationally followed by
proper establishment of marketing chains. The concept of GCC was established by Gereffi in
mid 1990 in order to develop an understanding of the effect of globalization on industrial
commodity chains. Many chains are characterized by different dominant parties who are
responsible for determining the overall character of the chain (Gereffi & Fernandez-Stark, 2016).
The analysis of this chain can be of two types – one which is driven by buyers called buyer-
driven commodity chains and one which is driven by producers called the producer-driven
commodity chains.
Permatemp:
A permatemp can be defined as a temporary employee who is subjected to work for over an
extended period of time for a particular staffing client. It can be described as the portmanteaus of
the two words of permanent and temporary. They can be of two types: one who is a worker for
the staffing service provider or professional employer organization or payroll agency who sends
employees to work for long term as well as onsite positions for other organizations. The other
one is the kind of employee who performs the same tasks like permanent employees but is not
provided with same pay, labor rights or benefits (Miller, 2016).

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Virtual workplace:
A virtual workplace is an innovate concept of working environment which is not situated within
particular physical space. This type of workplace mainly covers a wide variety of network of
several workplaces which are connected with each other technologically. This is mainly possible
with the help of private network or with the help of internet by overcoming the needs of
considering the different geographical boundaries (Askarzai, Lan & Unhelkar, 2015). This type
of workplace gives the employees chance to interact with each other irrespective of the place
where they are present and thereby maintain a collaborative working environment. Some of the
most important components of the virtual workplace are people, online procedures, hardware and
others.
Distributed work:
Technological advancements as well as changes in the global economy had made many
international companies to conduct their business globally. In such types of business, workers are
seen to communicate with their coworkers form different branches of the organization overseas
along with conducting proper monitoring of tools, handling meetings, developing plans and
strategies and many others. The workforce in such global companies needs to conduct distributed
work which mainly means working successfully at an international level where geographical
barriers cannot become a constraint (Koppman & Gupta, 2014). Distributed work arrangements
are flexible, innovative and are often considered highly successful by business experts of the
world. Organizations which focus on distribute work can be seen using a networking

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infrastructures that make it simple for the team members across the world to perform and work
successfully together.

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References:
Askarzai, W., Lan, Y. C., & Unhelkar, B. (2015). Impact of virtual workplace on employee
behavior: evidence from Australian SMEs. In Proceedings of the 20th International
Conference on Transformative Science and Engineering, Business and Social Innovation,
November 1-5, 2015, Fort Worth, Texas (pp. 248-255).
Gereffi, G., & Fernandez-Stark, K. (2016). Global value chain analysis: a primer.
Koppman, S., & Gupta, A. (2014). Navigating the mutual knowledge problem: A comparative
case study of distributed work. Information Technology & People, 27(1), 83-105.
Miller, M. (2016). Temp workers, permanent effects: how temps changed the nature of the US
workforce.

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