Chain Participants Research Articles

Determinants for overcoming the partial commercialization of the production of family farmers

ABSTRACT Purpose This study examines how natural, financial, human, and social capital, along with entrepreneurial competence, enable family farmers to transition from partial to full commercialization of their production. Design/Methodology/Approach The research was conducted in the Federal District of Brazil and analyzed 14 paradigmatic cases of success and failure in overcoming subsistence-oriented commercialization. Data collection involved structured forms and semi-structured interviews. The study employed Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Content Analysis (CA) to identify key enablers of full commercialization. Findings The results indicate that participation in Short Food Supply Chains (SFSC), such as fairs and Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), plays a decisive role in overcoming commercialization barriers. The study identifies additional critical factors, including access to irrigation, labor-saving machinery, frequent training, and the adoption of innovative practices from neighboring farmers. These elements contribute to increased market integration and a shift toward more sustainable rural entrepreneurship. Practical implications The findings suggest that policies aimed at enhancing SFSC participation, improving training opportunities, and expanding access to modern agricultural technologies can significantly improve family farmers’ ability to fully commercialize their production. Support for innovation adoption and knowledge-sharing initiatives among farmers can further strengthen market participation. Theoretical implications This research contributes to the understanding of how various forms of capital interact with entrepreneurial competence to drive market-oriented production. It reinforces the importance of innovation, social networks, and resource accessibility in shaping rural entrepreneurship. Originality/Value By combining QCA and CA methodologies, this study offers a nuanced perspective on the factors influencing family farmers’ transition to full commercialization. The findings provide actionable insights for policymakers, rural development programs, and researchers interested in improving small-scale agricultural market integration.

Multinational and Domestic Firms' Participation in Food Global Value Chains: Does Institutional Quality Matter?

ABSTRACTThis study provides empirical evidence on the role of institutional quality in driving countries' participation in Global Value Chains (GVC) by distinguishing domestic from multinational firms (MNEs). Drawing on the Analytical Activities of MNEs (AMNE) database of OECD, we use a panel gravity framework to assess whether institutional quality improves GVC firms' participation in the food, beverages, and tobacco industry and whether the responsiveness to changes in institutional quality differs between domestic and multinational firms. A key finding is that the lower the institutional quality the greater the gap in participation between multinational and domestic firms. In developing countries, where institutions are relatively weak, domestic firms' GVC participation is correspondingly low relative to that of multinational firms.

The Impact of Global Value Chain Participation on Inflation: Evidence from Producer Price Index of Korea and China

This study investigates the influence of global value chain (GVC) participation in the manufacturing sector on inflation in Korea and China. Additionally, it examines the impact of GVC participation on inflation of different manufacturing industries based on technology intensity in both countries. We employ Wang et al. (2017) approach utilizing the ADB MRIO database, with Korea and China as our sample and used the FGLS model to consider the impact of GVC participations on inflation between Korea and China's 15 manufacturing industries from 2007 to 2021. The results indicate that GVC participation and backward participation in Korean manufacturing have a significant positive effect on inflation. In China, GVC participation and backward participation show a significant negative effect on inflation. Furthermore, while the effect of GVC participation on inflation in Korea and China did not show differences by the technology intensity. In Korea, medium–high-tech industries, GVC participation, forward and backward participations have a positive significant effect on inflation. Medium–low-tech industries exhibit a positive impact from GVC and backward participations, while low-tech industries demonstrate a negative effect from GVC, forward, and backward participations on inflation. In China, backward participation in the medium–high-tech and low-tech manufacturing sectors has a significant negative impact on inflation.

Escaping the GVC trap: How does global value chain (GVC) participation impact the integration of the industrial and innovation chains?

Escaping the GVC trap: How does global value chain (GVC) participation impact the integration of the industrial and innovation chains?

How Energy Constraints Drive Firms’ Participation in the Global Value Chain? International Evidence

This study explores how energy constraints affect firms’ participation in global value chains (GVCs). Drawing on extensive plant-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey, covering the manufacturing sector in 119 countries from 2005 to 2022, the analysis reveals that energy constraints significantly hinder firms’ ability to engage in GVCs. This adverse effect is primarily driven by reduced productivity, increased energy expenses, and diminished investments in machinery. However, the impact is not uniform, varying by time periods, firm sizes, sectors, and regions. Smaller firms and those in energy-intensive industries are particularly vulnerable, while regional differences underscore the role of infrastructure quality and the effectiveness of energy policies. The robustness of the findings is verified using alternative measures and approaches that mitigate potential endogeneity concerns. These insights provide important policy implications aimed at enhancing firms’ participation in GVCs through targeted energy infrastructure and policy improvements.

Global value chains participation and pollution emissions? Theory and evidence from Chinese enterprises

Global value chains participation and pollution emissions? Theory and evidence from Chinese enterprises

Price and Quality Decisions in a Co-opetitive Supply Chain Considering Two-Dimensional Consumer Preferences

Co-opetition is a crucial strategy in modern supply chains. In this study, we investigate the price and quality decisions in a co-opetitive supply chain considering two-dimensional customer preferences. The supply chain comprises a key component supplier and an OEM, where the supplier decides whether to enter the end market. The Stackelberg game is employed to examine the optimal decisions of supply chain members. Through comparative analysis, we find that when the supplier’s quality cost coefficient is low, a higher proportion of price-sensitive consumers leads to an increase in the OEM’s final product price. In addition, the supplier consistently benefits from entering the end market and forming a co-opetitive relationship with the OEM. However, this market entry benefits the OEM only when the product substitutability is low and the supplier’s quality investment efficiency is relatively low. The results of this study provide guidance for market practices among supply chain participants.

Who is the best insurance buyer? Financing the capital-constrained manufacturer with trade credit insurance

Reverse factoring is a widely used finance solution for capital-constrained upstream enterprises. To effectively avoid the risk of unpaid debt, the integration of trade credit insurance (TCI) into factoring finance, encompassing reverse factoring, has gained increasing popularity. Motivated by the practice that both manufacturers and factors can act as TCI buyers, this study examines the decision analysis in two TCI schemes, i.e. the manufacturer-insured TCI (MI) and the factor-insured TCI (FI), on optimal decisions and profits of supply chain participants through game analysis. We find that when the manufacturer is highly capital-constrained, compared with the benchmark scenario without insurance, both MI and FI can generate higher profits for the retailer and the manufacturer. Through comparative analysis, we show that the manufacturer’s initial capital and unit production cost affect participants’ preferences in insurance options. Specifically, the retailer prefers MI if the unit production cost is high and prefers FI otherwise, and the factor chooses MI if the unit production cost is relatively low and the capital constraint is relatively high and prefers FI otherwise. Furthermore, FI scheme can achieve Pareto improvement for all participants if the manufacturer’s capital constraint is at a medium level.

Blockchain technology in agriculture: Ensuring transparency and traceability in the food supply chain

The study explores the transformative role of blockchain technology in enhancing transparency and traceability within the agricultural food supply chain. By leveraging blockchain's inherent characteristics of decentralization, immutability, and security, stakeholders can significantly improve information sharing and visibility from farm to consumer. The study delves into how blockchain addresses longstanding transparency and traceability issues that have plagued the agricultural sector. Real-world examples illustrate blockchain's successful application in agriculture, showcasing its capacity to boost transparency, operational efficiency, and trust among supply chain participants. These case studies demonstrate how blockchain creates tamper-proof records, enhances end-to-end visibility, and provides reliable, real time data. The technology's potential to combat fraud, promote sustainability, and ensure product authenticity is also explored. Furthermore, the research investigates blockchain's impact on food safety, particularly when integrated with Internet of Things (IoT) devices and smart contracts. These synergies enable automated, secure data collection and the execution of predefined agreements, further streamlining supply chain processes. Successful implementations across various areas of supply chain management, including logistics, inventory tracking, and quality control, are highlighted to demonstrate the practical benefits of blockchain adoption. By providing an in-depth analysis of blockchain's potential, this study underscores its pivotal role in building consumer trust regarding food safety, quality, and origin. The research concludes by discussing the challenges and opportunities for widespread blockchain adoption in agriculture, offering insights into its future trajectory and potential to revolutionize the global food supply chain.

Global Value Chains Participation and Air Pollution: Does Digital Economy Matter?

ABSTRACTBased on a panel dataset of 47 countries during 1995–2015, this study investigates the impact of global value chains participation, as measured by position index, on air pollution. The moderating effect of digital economy is also examined. The results show that the increase of global value chains position has a negative impact on air pollution. Heterogeneity analyses show that the increase of forward‐linked production length could mitigate air pollution. The negative impact of global value chains position is reflected in non‐OECD countries, and the impact on CO is stronger than other pollutants. The mechanism analyses show that increased global value chains position mitigates air pollution through industrial structure upgrading and technological progress. The moderating effect analyses reveal that digital economy could strengthen the negative impact, in which digital applications play a key role. Digital economy could also strengthen the path of global value chains position affecting air pollution through industrial structure and technological progress. The results reveal that global value chains position should be improved to promote air pollution control, and different countries should implement differentiated strategies. In particular, it is of great significance for pollution control to promote the transformation and integration of digital achievements with digital applications as the breakthrough.

Research on Logistics Service Supply Chain Coordination in the Context of Green Innovation

With the global advancement of sustainable development concepts, the logistics industry is confronting significant environmental challenges, making green innovation a critical driver for industrial transformation and upgrading. However, during the green innovation process in logistics service supply chains, the differing roles of logistics service integrators and logistics service providers, combined with high costs and uncertain returns, hinder coordination efficiency. Therefore, it is imperative to enhance the coordination of supply chain contracts. Nevertheless, existing literature provides limited insights into the coordination capacities and impacts of different contracts on green innovation in logistics service supply chains. This study develops a Stackelberg game model where the logistics service integrator acts as the leader and logistics service providers serve as followers, examining the effects of cost-sharing contracts, revenue-sharing contracts, and hybrid cost-sharing and revenue-sharing contracts on supply chain coordination. Numerical simulations are employed to validate the findings. The results indicate that hybrid contracts provide the strongest incentives for green innovation among supply chain participants, whereas cost-sharing contracts offer relatively weaker incentives for integrators’ green design innovation. In addition, revenue-sharing contracts and hybrid contracts were effective in reducing the wholesale price of green logistics services, although all three contract types resulted in higher market prices. Finally, all three contract types achieve Pareto improvements in the supply chain, with hybrid contracts maximizing the total profit of the supply chain. This study not only elucidates the incentive mechanisms and relative advantages of different contracts in supply chain collaboration, but also offers critical theoretical and practical insights for designing contracts to foster green innovation in the logistics sector.

A study on analysing the role of blockchain in supply chain data security and developing a conceptual diagram

This research explores the role of blockchain technologyin enhancingdata securitywithin modernsupply chains. As global supply chains become increasingly complex and vulnerable to risks such as fraud, counterfeiting, and data breaches, blockchain offers a promising solution to address these challenges. By leveraging its core features blockchain can improve transparency, trust, and traceability in supply chain operations. This study examines how these blockchain features can secure critical data elements, such as product provenance, inventory management, and financial transactions, ensuring their integrity and authenticity. The research also discusses the technical benefits of blockchain, including its ability to prevent unauthorized access, reduce fraud, and enhance collaboration among supply chain participants. Despite its advantages, the study identifies several limitations, including adoption barriers, scalability issues, and regulatory concerns. The findings suggest that while blockchain has the potential to revolutionize supply chain security, further research is needed to overcome these challenges and explore its broader applicability across various industries. Future studies should focus on improving scalability, exploring sector-specific implementations, and addressing the legal frameworks necessary for blockchain adoption.

Initiative as Institution: How the Belt and Road Initiative Influences Chinese Firms’ Participation in Global Value Chains

Abstract This article investigates how the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), proposed by China in 2013, influences the participation of Chinese firms in the global value chains (GVCs). More than just an economic strategy, BRI could serve as a substitute for inadequate contract enforcement in cross-border economic transactions between Chinese firms and their foreign counterparts. Using data from Chinese private companies listed from 2008 to 2016 and multiplicative interaction models, this article evaluates the impact of BRI as a policy shock that enhances contract enforcement and encourages Chinese firms’ participation in the GVCs. The results suggest that, following the implementation of the BRI in 2013, private firms with political ties to the government became more active participants in the GVCs, thanks to greater support from the Chinese state in facilitating contract enforcement abroad. The findings imply that BRI, as a state-led economic strategy, can also function as a mechanism that encourages private firms with political connections to expand globally by reducing transaction costs in cross-border trade activities.

The retailer's information sharing decisions with manufacturer's encroachment and production learning effects

If the manufacturer can efficiently reduce costs and boost overall profits throughout the supply chain, he can send some incremental surplus to the retailer to motivate him to share his precise demand information. We study a two-period dual-channel supply chain where a manufacturer sells through a retailer with an advantage in demand information. The manufacturer can encroach and use production learning effects to reduce costs. Based on six scenarios under the "encroachment-dominated + production-learning effect-dominated + dual-factor" approaches, we investigated how the manufacturer's encroachment and the production-learning effect affected the retailer's decisions to share information. Some interesting results are obtained. First, a single-win, win-win, or lose-lose situation is generated for the supply chain participants by the dynamic competition mechanism under the combined effects of encroachment and the production learning effect. When more ambiguous demand information is cooperatively provided, both the retailer and manufacturer will benefit from information sharing. The win-win area increases with higher direct selling costs, whereas the win-win area decreases with increased production learning effects. Second, the retailer's information sharing benefits more from a higher level of the production learning effect when demand information is unclear, and information sharing benefits more from a lower level of the production learning effect when demand information is more accurate. In addition, in terms of profitability following information sharing, we ultimately discover that a unilateral payment contract renders the single cost reduction strategy superior to the single channel expansion strategy. The best incentive strategy to encourage retailer information sharing is to simultaneously implement cost reduction and channel expansion. Finally, we obtain some management insights that support supply chain parties in making decisions regarding the resolution of channel conflicts and the realization of information cooperation.

Effects and mechanisms of digital economy development on corporate carbon emission intensity: empirical evidence from cross-country data

This study analyzes the effects and mechanisms of the digital economy on corporate carbon emission intensity through theoretical and empirical analysis. It explores the potential of the digital economy as a driving force for reducing corporate carbon emission intensity. It has been found that a country's digital economic development can reduce corporate carbon emission intensity by influencing the country's innovation level, energy structure, and total corporate factor productivity. Further analysis reveals that increased participation in global value chains and rising status will strengthen the carbon emission reduction effect of the digital economy; the carbon emission reduction effect of the digital economy is more evident in countries with weaker environmental regulation intensity.

China, global value chains, and the middle-income trap

Abstract Whether China can avoid the middle-income trap has been the subject of extensive research. Currently classified as an upper middle-income country, China increasingly exhibits similar characteristics as countries currently experiencing the middle-income trap. However, using evidence from China’s coastal manufacturing city of Dongguan, this article shows how China’s approach to global value chain (GVC) participation created conditions for avoiding the middle-income trap: 1) agglomeration and manufacturing scale at multiple stages of production, 2) a mix of foreign and domestic enterprises, 3) participation in GVCs for multiple industries, 4) development of domestic demand, and 5) continuously reconfiguring government industrial policies. With these characteristics, China’s economy is likely to continue to grow, suggesting that GVC participation can facilitate a path around the middle-income trap.

Effects of Technical Barriers to Trade on Vietnam’s Export Performance and Global Value Chain Participation

Effects of Technical Barriers to Trade on Vietnam’s Export Performance and Global Value Chain Participation

An Evolutionary Game Model of a Regional Logistics Service Supply Chain Complex Network in a Blockchain Environment

Blockchain technology offers a novel solution to address the issue of information silos present in the complex network system of regional logistics service supply chains. Furthermore, enhancing the willingness of participants to engage in this system has emerged as a critical issue requiring urgent resolution. This study assumes bounded rationality and constructs an evolutionary game model to analyze the adoption behaviors of logistics service providers (LSPs) and logistics service integrators (LSIs) in a blockchain environment. The stability theorem of differential equations is employed to elucidate the inherent decision-making mechanisms present in the game. Acknowledging that traditional evolutionary mechanisms often neglect individual heterogeneity and the dynamic changes in the topological structures of complex networks, this study further involves the development of an evolutionary game model tailored for the complex network of a regional logistics service supply chain. After validating the effectiveness of the model, this research investigates how market environmental factors influence the adoption behaviors of LSPs and LSIs. Finally, through case simulations, the effects of key influencing factors on participatory behaviors within the regional logistics service supply chain are analyzed. The findings indicate that, in a blockchain environment, both prior to and following the adoption of complex network technology in the regional logistics service supply chain, the equilibrium stability of the network system is jointly determined by the total revenues of LSPs and LSIs. External factors in the blockchain environment significantly influence technology adoption strategies. Notably, when both the sensitivity coefficients of market demand relative to price and logistics service costs concerning quality enhancement are high, the willingness of supply chain participants to adopt the technology declines rapidly. As the quality elasticity increases, the technology adoption rates of providers and integrators initially stabilize and subsequently increase exponentially. Changes in the revenues of logistics service providers have no significant impact on technology adoption rates within the regional logistics service supply chain.

How can the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfcFTA) help develop regional value chains across Africa? An exploration

AbstractAll African countries participate in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to boost intra-African trade to accelerate structural transformation. At the same time, increasing geopolitical tensions around the world are pressuring countries to ‘reshore’ by retreating from engagement in Global Value Chains (GVCs) towards Regional Value Chains (RVCs). High values for RVC indices would indicate that African exports have a high import content of intermediates originating in Africa and that exports destined to other African countries undergo further processing, an indication of structural transformation. The paper uses the EORA Multi-regional Input–Output (MRIO) data over 1995–2022 to present new, more comprehensive measures of participation in supply chains at several levels: across countries, regions, and sectors. Comparisons are with countries (e.g. China or India) and aggregates of countries (e.g. Europe, Americas, Asia) engaged in deep market integration. Measures for 50 African countries are compared with those for other regions. On average, African exports have a low content of imported intermediates and undergo further transformation in importing countries before reaching final consumers. Compared with other regions, African countries mostly engage in supply chain trade with countries outside Africa, displaying low values of RVC indices. In sum, compared to other regions, African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and other regional trade agreements across the continent have failed to launch intra-African trade. The paper then explores the determinants of participation in supply chains. At the world level, from 1995 to 2022, geography factors and policy-related instruments like openness (captured by tariffs) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stimulate GVC trade. For Africa, low tariffs and FDI are positively associated with regional supply chain activity, an indication that AfCFTA implementation should stimulate intra-African trade.

Effects of Global Value Chain Participation on Economic Growth and Carbon Emissions: A Panel VAR Analysis

This study explores the effects of forward and backward participation in Global Value Chains (GVCs) on economic growth and carbon emissions, using inter-country input-output (ICIO) data from 1995 to 2018. While prior research has either focused on bivariate relationships or failed to distinguish the distinct impacts of forward and backward GVC participation, this study makes a novel contribution by simultaneously analyzing these variables within a panel vector error correction model (VECM). This approach enables the isolation of directional GVC effects, incorporates long-run equilibrium relationships, and minimizes the potential for intervariable endogeneity. The study yields three key findings. First, we observe a positive long-run relationship between GVC participation and economic growth, irrespective of the direction of participation. Second, evidence of cointegration and dynamic causal relationships is found among GVC participation, economic growth, and carbon emissions. Third, we demonstrate that forward GVC participation has a negative causal effect on carbon emissions, while backward GVC participation is associated with positive causality. These results support the potential for sustainable economic development through GVC participation. Moreover, when countries are classified as environment-friendly or less environment-friendly, our findings indicate that sustainable growth is more achievable in environment-friendly countries.