This article discusses aspects of the global-local relations, focusing on the process of formation and development of the Gravataí automotive complex and its social implications as related to the labor relations and employment in local companies. In accordance with the recent formation of the global system, it is assumed that the presence of global agents in local contexts creates new social dynamics that depend on specific arrangements between economic and institutional circumstances, levels and types of available social and economic resources, and strategies mobilized by social agents. The global agents would impose new competitive and technological references to the local agents, who would often be unprepared to meet such requirements. On the other hand, there could be alternative ways of providing access to capital, markets, technologies and knowledge, encouraging changes in labor relations and employment at the local level. The asymmetry in the relations of economic power would not prevent the local agents from reacting to the new rules and conditions of the international system, in accordance with the possibilities offered by their resources and the limits of their values. Thus, the global-local relation would have different implications among the social agents.
Automotive industry; Labor relations and employment; Supply chain; Regional development; Globalization