Institutional Investment in Farmland and the Restructuring of Australia’s Macadamia Nut Global Production Network

Accelerating processes of economic globalization have fundamentally reshaped the organization of the global economy towards much greater integration and functional interdependence through cross-border economic activity. In this interconnected world system, a new form of economic organization has emerged: Global Production Networks (GPNs). This brings together a wide array of economic actors, most notably capitalist firms, state institutions, labour unions, consumers and non-government organizations, in the transnational production of economic value. National and sub-national economic development in this highly interdependent global economy can no longer be conceived of, and understood within, the distinct territorial boundaries of individual countries and regions. Instead, global production networks are organizational platforms through which actors in these different national or regional economies compete and cooperate for a larger share of the creation, transformation, and capture of value through transnational economic activity. They are also vehicles for transferring the value captured between different places. This book ultimately aims to develop a theory of global production networks that explains economic development in the interconnected global economy. While primarily theoretical in nature, it is well grounded in cutting-edge empirical work in the parallel and highly impactful strands of social science literature on the changing organization of the global economy relating to global commodity chains (GCC), global value chains (GVC), and global production networks (GPN).

.There is growing empirical and theoretical interest in post‐consumption activity that results in the capture and creation of value from waste in the global economy. This article engages with two dominant approaches to tracing the capture and creation of value, global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks (GPNs), and their shared call to examine waste disposal and recycling. Using non‐participant observation, semi‐structured interviews, and a survey we examine what happens to the products of one of GVCs ‘and GPNs’ paradigmatic industries, electronics, when they are labelled e‐waste and are imported into Dhaka, Bangladesh, as rubbish electronics. Rather than wasting and final disposal predominating, our research documents a substantial rubbish recovery economy that captures and creates value anew. Consequently, we argue that both GVC and GPN approaches must rethink how they theorize the capture and creation of value.

This paper explores the intersections and overlaps between state capitalism and global production networks. A key feature of the so-called new state capitalism is the combination of state ownership and corporatisation, which creates a system that can be characterised as a hybrid of public–private governance in both corporate and network terms. Moreover, the internationalisation of state hybrids adds an extraterritorial dimension to the state, which can influence the configuration and governance of global production networks. This paper develops a conceptual framework (H–E–N) that foregrounds the relationships between hybrid governance (H), extraterritoriality (E) and global production network configurations (N), thereby promoting an integrated analysis of the implications of the new state capitalism for global production networks. This framework is mobilised to explain how state capitalism in Singapore has influenced the development of the city-state's position in upstream, midstream and downstream oil global production networks over the 1959–2019 period. The study demonstrates that hybrid governance, as part of a wider strategy of state capitalism, has been critical in the development of Singapore's position in oil global production networks. The hybrid nature of the institutional forms associated with state ownership – for instance state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds – goes beyond market facilitation to encompass active state participation in markets. Hybrid governance not only allows the state to influence domestic outcomes but – through the extraterritorial strategies of hybrid entities – can also influence global production network configurations beyond its borders.

Functional fragmentation of production and spatial dispersion actualized through global production networks (GPN) increases participation of developing South in global trade by way of specializing in particular tasks. This change in production organization as conceived in GPN literature is a new phase of fast-tracking industrialization in developing countries. A continuous process of upgradation and efficient governance would allow developing countries to move up the value ladder. The paper first of all argues that because of higher participation rate, it is largely the advanced countries who accounted net gain in returns while most of the developing countries incurred a net loss with increased participation in global production network. The paper then questions the notion of ‘value added’ and analyses the asymmetry as a structural phenomenon of global capitalism invoking Marxian notion of production, appropriation of surplus value and its distribution in the form of rent and profit. Value capture takes place by inter- and intra-industry transfer of surplus and through asymmetric distribution of potential rents conditioned through the new architecture of institutions in the era of globalization. Finally, the paper concludes that global production network emerges as the new template of power and profit in the age of Empire.

This article locates the reorganization of work relations in the apparel sector in Pakistan, after the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quota regime, within the context of a global production network (GPN). We examine the role of a network of corporate, state, multilateral and civil society actors who serve as intermediaries in GPN governance. These intermediaries transmit and translate competitive pressures and invoke varied, sometimes contradictory, imaginaries in their efforts to realign and stabilize the GPN. We analyse the post-MFA restructuring of Pakistan’s apparel sector, which dramatically increased price competition and precipitated a contested adjustment process among Pakistani and global actors with divergent priorities and resources. These intermediaries converged on a ‘solution’ that combined and enacted imaginaries of modernization, competitiveness, professional management and female empowerment, while also emphasizing low costs and female docility. We highlight the intersection of economic, political and cultural dynamics of GPNs, and reveal the gendered dimensions of GPN restructuring. We theorize the role of these actors as a transnational managerial elite in GPN governance, who led a restructuring process that preserved the hegemonic stability of the GPN and protected the interests of western branded apparel companies and consumers, but did not necessarily serve the interests of workers.

In this article, we draw on the global production networks (GPNs) and global value chains perspectives to examine the regional development effects of economic upgrading in the Czech automotive industry between 1998 and 2008. We investigate how the position of Czech-based automotive firms in GPNs affects the intensity of upgrading and the amount of value captured for the benefit of the host regions through wages, corporate taxes revenues and reinvested profits. Based on the statistical analysis of firm-level data aggregated at the micro-regional level, the intensity of economic upgrading and value capture is measured for groups of regions and for different tiers of the automotive value chain. The results suggest large differences in profitability and value capture between the regions hosting vehicle assembly firms and those hosting component suppliers.

In the paper, we employ a global value chain / global production network framework to examine value creation and especially value capture by various types of companies. The analysis is based on economic performance indicators from the 300 largest companies in Czechia based on turnover from 2014 to 2019. However, the hypothesized pattern of value capture was not confirmed in the case of foreign-owned companies. This finding suggests that an important role is played by the mandates multinationals assign to their national branches. The analysis also showed that companies operating in the service sector, broadly conceived, tend to capture less value than manufacturing firms. Finally, companies in both the manufacturing and service sector with access to the end market tend to capture greater value than companies without such access. Overall, our empirical analysis of value captured demonstrates that the assumption of a straightforward relationship between company position within a global value chain or global production network and value capture can be overly simplistic.

Chapter 4 - A Study of Siemens’s GPN

High hopes are pinned on tourism and its catalytic potential to foster growth in remote rural areas. In the Zambezi region of northeastern Namibia, tourism plays a key role in the design of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programmes for nature conservation. Local communities form conservancies, small village-based entities of bottom-up nature conservation activities. These conservancies are granted rights for the use of natural resources, which are then transferred to tourism investors and trophy-hunting companies. Thus, conservancies partly determine tourism’s developmental outcomes on a local level. By applying a global production network (GPN) approach, the objective is, first, to assess how much of the turnover generated in the Zambezi region remains in the region and, second, to examine the extent to which conservancies, as newly formed local institutions, enable communities to capture value from tourism. A mixed-methods approach is applied, using a business survey, qualitative interview data and financial reports which allow a calculation of value capture. Roughly 20% of the value generated by the tourism industry in the Zambezi region is captured locally. In addition, conservancies play a key role in the GPN, acting as hinges between the local and the global: conservancies are involved in the production of the resource, mediate in strategic coupling processes and use regulatory and bargaining power to capture value. Conservancies therefore have the potential to increase local gains from tourism. On the one hand, these results underline the importance of local institutions for value capture in GPN analysis. On the other hand, as local linkages are limited and the level of local ownership is low, policies are needed that ensure the participation of local residents beyond direct transfer payments from private enterprises to communities.

This article examines how agricultural waste - in the form of cocoa pod husks (CPHs) - can be valorised through integration into alternative production networks. Drawing on the case of CPH-based black soap production in Ghana, we use the Global Production Network (GPN) approach to analyse how local value creation and enhancement of agricultural waste is affected by underlying production network structures. We argue that the transformation of CPHs into soap represents both a spatial and structural shift: although CPHs originate within the global cocoa-chocolate production network, their revaluation unfolds in a distinct, small-scale, locally embedded production network. This overlap creates frictions that constrain value capture, particularly for small-scale producers. Based on qualitative interviews, we show how actors’ embeddedness - societal, territorial, and network embeddedness - mediates upgrading opportunities. While cosmetic companies benefit from greater network embeddedness and capital, small-scale producers face regulatory barriers, information asymmetries, and limited collective organisation. Although cocoa farmer cooperatives represent important agents of collective power, existing support schemes often fail to align these structures with the specific requirements and dynamics of black soap production networks. By integrating literature on agricultural by-products, waste, and upgrading into GPN analysis, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of value creation beyond conventional production networks and calls for more inclusive and network-sensitive development strategies.

The transnational expansion of large retailers like Metro and Wal-Mart and its consequent power shifts have caused trade unions in the company's host countries of their expansion to react differently. These reactions include the de? velopment of international union networks, the organisation of employees in the new supermarkets and resistance against new competitors of old-established retailers. Unions are part of the extra-firm networks of global production networks and influence their development and spatiality. However, to develop collective power in a global production network, unions have to develop strategies that are able to overcome the spatial asymmetry between the transnationally organised companies and the place-bound labour. This paper analyses the strategies of the Indian union UNICOME (the Union for Commerce Employees in India) to develop collective power in a Global Production Network in the retail sector, namely the transna? tional retailer and wholesaler Metro. The case study shows how a union's greater power in the company's German home market was harnessed in order to develop collective power in India by means of network relationships.

Fuelling global production networks with slave labour?: Migrant sugar cane workers in the Brazilian ethanol GPN

Knowledge of spatial and temporal actor dynamics in global production networks (GPNs) based on renewable natural resources remains rudimentary. This article contributes to reducing this knowledge gap by showing how upstream actors shape the territorial embeddedness and value dynamics (creation, enhancement, and capture of value) of GPNs. Empirically, we present a fine‐grained analysis of the upstream section of the global production network for commercial medicinal plants harvested in and traded from Nepal. In particular, the paper investigates the within‐group and between‐group dynamics of key actors (traders and wholesalers). Empirical data was generated through 257 quantitative and 121 qualitative interviews with harvesters, sub‐local traders, local traders, central wholesalers and regional wholesalers, supplemented with focus‐group discussions. Analysis focuses on three key areas of interaction: infrastructural and ecological variations; territorial embeddedness and development; and institutional power and network reconfiguration. The findings help to understand the role of upstream actors in reconfiguring GPNs and enhancing the explanatory power of the GPN approach by adding organizational supply‐side insights, thereby facilitating identification of pro‐poor interventions.

Drawing on global production network research and conceptual explanations of the changing spatial divisions of labour, this article investigates the transformative effects of the dynamic interplay between strategic coupling and multiscalar changes across labour regimes in Central and Eastern European post-socialist sectoral trajectories. It interrogates critically whether sectors across peripheral regions have been able to slot themselves into lead firms’ transnational production systems, resulting in processes of value creation, value capture or value destruction. The empirical analysis reveals that the capacity of domestic resources to purposively match and align themselves to global lead firms and their strategic objectives is influenced by local historical legacies, spatiality, elite agency and labour agency, which combined to shape distinct meso-level transformations. The methodology is based on analysing the post-socialist transformation of three sectors in Romania, which have different historical legacies, institutional configurations, and spatial and temporal vectors of development, allowing us to trace interactions between different modes of strategic coupling or decoupling and labour regime reconfiguration. The central thrust of the article highlights how different modes of strategic coupling into global production networks, or decoupling from global production networks, are causally linked to the reconfiguration of labour regimes, leading to long-term regional socio-economic transformations.

For many years, struggles over value capture have been taking place between different actors in the logistics sector, creating ever more pressure for workers in traditional activities of logistics. New actors, in the form of digital business-to-business (B2B) platforms, which are proliferating especially in the freight transport sector, are further challenging the already contested field. Based on the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach, this study addresses the question of how B2B platforms affect labour in production networks of logistics, and what labour agency practices are emerging in the face of advancing platformisation. The study draws on interviews with various actors operating in the road freight transport sector in Germany. The results show that digital B2B platforms, due to their intermediary function, have a direct impact on the inclusion and exclusion of actors involved in production networks of logistics, and induce not only a race to the bottom in terms of labour conditions, but also produce increasingly contingent geographies of logistics. This paper contributes to the literature on platforms by examining previously neglected B2B platforms and shedding light on the different ways that labour in global production networks can be affected by new agents, such as digital platforms.