Global Production Network Approach Research Articles

More than an inter-scalar mediator: global production networks, the state and Chile’s National Mining Company (ENAMI)

ABSTRACT Recent contributions to the global production networks (GPN) literature delve into public governance as mediation between global networks and regional assets. They deal with the state as a buyer, producer and regulator. Further developing this line of research, the present article goes beyond inter-scalar mediation, explaining how Chile’s National Mining Company (ENAMI, by its Spanish acronym) directly ties domestic production to international markets. The authors argue that in such cases, global-to-local connections are beyond what the GPN literature explains through corporate strategies to reduce costs, become more flexible and increase the speed of operation. A corresponding adjustment of the GPN approach helps to better understand the impact of public governance. In light of severe financial constraints faced by ENAMI, the article also discusses two distinct visions for the organisation. This discussion has general implications regarding state interference with the economy and production networks.

The arduous art of empowering visual artists: why the Dutch digital sales platform Patty Morgan ultimately failed

This article investigates Patty Morgan, a Dutch digital sales platform for emerging visual artists, founded in 2013 out of a dissatisfaction with capitalistic practices. The analysis is situated against the backdrop of the increasing financial struggles of small-scale galleries, which play a crucial role in promoting new artists, consequently threatening a loss of innovation. Patty Morgan’s goal was to generate cultural and economic value through scouting, promoting and mediating activities, all the while maintaining a fair, digital approach with supportive settings for artists. It can be seen as an atypical case of how idealistic entrepreneurs try to enable visual artists to capture more of the value they create. Using key elements of the Global Production Network approach, i.e. governance and embeddedness, this article investigates why Patty Morgan’s digital approach ultimately failed. Discussing the reasons behind Patty Morgan’s financial hardship helps grasp why scouting and promoting emerging artists is not financially rewarding within the current visual arts ecosystem, especially in relation to the Dutch sociocultural and institutional context. This article suggests that, for the purpose of safeguarding the visual arts industry, funding policy needs to be reconsidered and responsibility for demand needs to be further discussed.

Inside the world of stepsiblings: Linking global production networks to sustainable supply chain management

AbstractThe theoretical foundation of (sustainable) supply chain management (SSCM) is an issue of frequent debate. Integrating it with the Global Production Networks (GPN), which is a kind of stepsibling, can help expanding the theoretical foundations of SSCM. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the GPN approach links to SSCM in analysing and explaining interorganizational sustainability. This paper is conceptual. Five central GPN constructs are identified: (1) the emerging supply chain structures and sustainability; (2) the importance and relevance of embeddedness and governance; (3) power dynamics; (4) the stakeholder approach; (5) the sustainability dimensions and the implementation strategies. They are explained in detail and then contrasted with how the related topics are dealt within SSCM. The paper provides insights into the ongoing discussions in GPN and integrates the political economy debate into SSCM research. Findings reveal that GPN offers an alternative and yet complementary explanation about network and cluster formation in supply chains, the effect of embeddedness (geopolitical, social, and cultural) power relationships and governance mechanisms and their role in implementing ecological and social sustainability across the supply chains. The comparison of these complementary disciplines allows for the exchange of ideas between the SSCM and GPN approaches, thereby providing an enriched understanding for managing supply chain sustainability. The selective comparison of the SSCM and GPN constructs is the first of its kind and should trigger further research at this intersection. Five propositions capture core directions for future research.

Inside-out strategic coupling for smallholder market integration – Mango production in Malawi as a test case

Starting from the observation that value chain research has informed much of agricultural development interventions in recent decades, this paper identifies five key challenges to current agricultural development policies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): access to finance, infrastructure, land tenure, local linkages and knowledge transfer. Based on this review, it is argued that recent theoretical advances in the global production network (GPN) approach can help to achieve a more holistic view of agricultural development policies than the more linear value chain research. In particular, three key concepts from the GPN approach are highlighted: mobilisation of regional assets, strategic coupling and territorial embeddedness. These key concepts are used to propose a framework called ‘insight-out strategic coupling for smallholder integration’, which builds on the concept of strategic coupling in GPN research and applies it as a development tool to agricultural production. Using an in-depth case study approach, the usefulness of this framework is tested by examining the experience of Malawi Mangoes, a company established to promote smallholder exports. Malawi Mangoes was initially funded by private equity, but despite a number of challenges along the way, was soon able to attract development funding and integrate smallholders from surrounding villages throughout-grower schemes. Analysis of the case shows both the usefulness of the framework and the lost potential in implementing agricultural development policy. The authors conclude that the framework is useful for linking current debates on agricultural development interventions, but that the findings of critical GPN research need to be taken into account when developing agricultural development interventions in order to respect the ‘do no harm’ principle.

Revisiting risk in the Global Production Network approach 2.0 - Towards a performative risk narrative perspective

Until the so-called GPN 2.0 approach placed it on the research agenda, risk had played a subordinate role in the literature on global production networks (GPN). In GPN 2.0, Knight's economic notion of risk is applied and defined as rationally calculable, in contrast to uncertainties. However, this still dominant conceptualization of risk falls short of an actor-centered focus, which is a focal point of the GPN 2.0 approach. Therefore, we advocate for a stronger conceptual integration of a social constructivist premise with a spatio-relational understanding of risk to enhance the explanatory power of GPN risk. This article highlights that GPN risk needs to be framed as becoming causally significant in the perception and expectations of organizational decision-makers. We argue that the organization-environment interaction causes the production and constitution of risk. In pursuit of an integrative research design, we develop a multi-scalar framework based on a performative risk narrative perspective.

Global production networks and medicinal plants: Upstream actor dynamics in Nepal

AbstractKnowledge 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.

Regional and Urban Development Under the Signs of Globalization: The Soybean Complex and the City of Agribusiness in Mato Grosso

Since the 1960s, the integration of local economic activities into global structures has fostered a continuous increase in the production of cash crops in Brazil. This has led to a far-reaching transformation of formerly peripheral regions. Given their wide range of uses, soybeans are a prime example of flex crops, which are becoming ever more important in global agribusiness. Soybean cultivation stands out as the main cause of widespread land use changes in many South American regions. The Brazilian state of Mato Grosso is one of the world's most important soy-growing regions, leading to controversial socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Drawing on the case of Sinop, the "City of Agribusiness," and its surrounding region, this article analyzes the complex territorial manifestations of global soybean production networks. We illustrate both the actor networks of agro-industrial soy production, as well as their functional interconnectedness and institutional embeddedness. Finally, we point out growing social-ecological problems caused by the ongoing soy boom. In doing so, the global production network approach offers great explanatory power for understanding global-local interdependencies and interactions.

Towards the lithium-ion battery production network: Thinking beyond mineral supply chains

The increasing role of electricity as an energy carrier in decarbonising economies is driving a growing demand for electrical energy storage in the form of battery systems. Two battery applications driving demand growth are electric vehicles and stationary forms of energy storage. Consequently, established battery production networks are increasingly intersecting with – and being transformed by – actors and strategies in the transport and power sectors, in ways that are important to understand. Most analyses of battery production adopt a supply chain approach, focussing on the flow and transformation of materials from primary production via manufacturing to final assembly. They pay only limited attention to organisational and geographical relations, and they overlook critical areas of intersection between battery production and OEM manufacturing for automotive and power sectors. As a result, supply chain approaches do not fully account for emergent properties of battery production networks.To remedy this, we deploy a global production network (GPN) approach that highlights the increasing intersection of battery manufacturing with the automotive and power sectors, informed by original research with key respondents in battery R&D and commercialization at the collaborative interfaces of academia, industry and government. Our GPN approach augments conventional supply chain accounts based on battery manufacturing in two ways: it identifies the economic and non-economic actors, network relations and multiple locations that constitute the global battery production network; and focuses on firm strategies of innovation, cooperation and competition through which this network acquires its organisationally and geographically dynamic character, (specifically increasing inter-industry intersections), and the multifaceted role of the state. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of this alternative account for understanding key areas of policy concern, and for analyses of the geopolitical economy of energy system transformation.

After Rana Plaza: Governing Exploitative Workplace Labour Regimes in Bangladeshi Garment Export Factories

In 2013, the Rana Plaza disaster highlighted the highly exploitative conditions of the global garment supply chain centred on Bangladesh. Global lead firms and other stakeholders responded by reforming the labour governance system comprising public and private regulations. How can the effects of this new multi-level governance system on worker outcomes (wages, working conditions and workers’ rights) be conceptualized and explained? Using an inter-disciplinary framework integrating an industrial relations/sociology perspective and a global production network approach, we show how workplace relations (structural and relational workplace characteristics) mediate the relationship between the labour governance system and worker outcomes. A mixed methods research design that includes a factory management survey and case studies enables us to identify and analyse two predominant types of workplace labour regimes associated with different patterns of worker outcomes (procedural and substantive employment conditions). Referred to as the hardship and sweatshop regimes, respectively, these differ in the extent to which workers are exploited. With the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, we discuss the possibility that modern slavery, the worst form of worker exploitation, is emerging. The paper concludes by briefly considering several research and practical implications of our analysis.

Regional and Urban Development Under the Signs of Globalization: The Soybean Complex and the City of Agribusiness in Mato Grosso

Since the 1960s, the integration of local economic activities into global structures has fostered a continuous increase in the production of cash crops in Brazil. This has led to a far-reaching transformation of formerly peripheral regions. Given their wide range of uses, soybeans are a prime example of flex crops, which are becoming ever more important in global agribusiness. Soybean cultivation stands out as the main cause of widespread land use changes in many South American regions. The Brazilian state of Mato Grosso is one of the world’s most important soy-growing regions, leading to controversial socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Drawing on the case of Sinop, the “City of Agribusiness,” and its surrounding region, this article analyzes the complex territorial manifestations of global soybean production networks. We illustrate both the actor networks of agro-industrial soy production, as well as their functional interconnectedness and institutional embeddedness. Finally, we point out growing social-ecological problems caused by the ongoing soy boom. In doing so, the global production network approach offers great explanatory power for understanding global-local interdependencies and interactions.

Shea ( Vitellaria paradoxa C. F. Gaertn.) – the emergence of global production networks in Burkina Faso, 1960–2021 1

After Burkina Faso's independence, shea butter continues to be the key staple edible oil used by Burkinabe households although alternatives are now being placed in local markets. Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa C. F. Gaertn.) is primarily managed as a food tree crop for African consumers but has been promoted as a wild and abundant crop which gives African women cash and empowerment. New international demand for edible Cocoa Butter Equivalents (CBEs) from the 1960s onwards led to the introduction of several state-led efforts to regulate and control the shea trade through stabilization funds and parastatal marketing boards. These were abandoned after 1984, when cocoa prices collapsed and shea markets were liberalized. Increasingly since 2003, several leading Trans-National Corporations that manufacture CBEs are involved in sourcing shea kernels to meet the growing demands of the multi-billion-dollar confectionary and cosmetics industries. Burkina Faso and Ghana are two of the main exporting countries producing 60–75% of all international shea offtake. West, Central and East African women shea collectors and their associations have also managed, more recently, to meet the growing demand for 'hand-crafted' shea butter for the global personal care sector and new niches in the edible oil industry. Attempts to explain the radical transformation of shea supply chains in West Africa have focused on relatively recent events and actions detached from the broader historical context in which they are embedded. This paper adopts a broad periodization, stemming from the formulation of CBEs incorporating shea and palm stearin in the 1960s, and using a Global Production Network approach to understand the role and position of women shea producers and their associations at the intersection of global, regional, and local periodic markets. It challenges the assumption that global markets are necessarily a more viable alternative to reliance on local, domestic, or regional markets. The growth of global trade in shea kernels and shea butter has been accompanied by significant land cover and land use changes which has led to the progressive loss of trees, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services such as pollination and carbon sequestration. This presents new socio-economic challenges, including threats to local food and nutrition security, tenure rights and the livelihoods of local communities.

Global production networks and the uneven development of regional training systems: Conceptualizing an approach and proposing a research agenda

This article argues that the global value chains framework has a problematic approach to examining the impact of value chains on workforce development systems (WDSs), given how it is based on market relations and a firm-centric view. The paper develops an alternative approach to examine value chains’ impact on WDSs as territorially and institutionally regulated, and as part of broader dynamics of accumulation and uneven development. A research agenda is suggested, which emphasizes the “dark side” of value chains’ impact on WDSs. This article contributes to the economic geography literature concerned with value chains, including the Global Production Networks approach.

Natural Gas Production Networks: Resource Making and Interfirm Dynamics in Peru and Bolivia

Economic geographers have largely shown concern about the interaction between extractive industries and local economies by studying how lead firms create economic linkages with national firms. From a global production networks approach, this work looks to deepen the understanding of interfirm dynamics in extractive industries. This work has a critical position over previous research, however, because such contributions do not consider how resources are socioecologically produced. This article shows that the socioecological relations that make natural gas an exploitable resource are critical to study the articulation between global and local firms. The contingent interaction between states, firms, and the biophysical properties of nature set up the conditions for interfirm dynamics because it creates (or does not create) a steady and continuous demand of services to perform specialized activities. This was the case in Bolivia where the neoliberal reforms of the early 1990 s, the massive involvement of lead firms, and the characteristics of natural gas deposits created conditions to develop industry-specific suppliers. Conversely, Peru has not been able to appraise its natural gas reserves and did not set up conditions for such suppliers. Therefore, the resource-making process is crucial for studying how global production networks and extractive industries are shaping the geography of uneven development.

The Invisible Networks of Global Production: Re-Imagining the Global Value Chain in Legal Research

Abstract Reviewing the burgeoning legal scholarship on global value chains to delineate the legal image of the global value chain and then comparing this legal image with images on global production in neighbouring social sciences research, in particular the Global Commodity Chain/Global Value Chain and the Global Production Network approach, this article reveals that legal research strongly aligns with the value chain image, but takes less account of the production-centric network image. The article then outlines a research agenda for legal research that departs from a network perspective on global production. To that end, it proposes that re-imagining the law in a world of global production networks requires a focus in legal research on the legal construction of global production and its infrastructure and a stronger contextualization of governance obligations and liability rules in the light of the issue-specific legal rules that apply to said infrastructure.

Globalizing urban research, grounding global production networks

Geographically dispersed networks of production interact with urban economic development and contribute to shape the built environment and urbanization processes all over the world. However, the global manufacturing of goods and their circulation have not yet been given adequate attention in the field of urban research. This article charts a research framework to study the interplay between urban spaces and globalized industrial production. We argue that a relational perspective on multi-local economic processes as provided by commodity chain approaches, specifically the Global Production Networks (GPN) framework, ought to be integrated into urban research in order to grasp the driving forces and the transnational character of urban development in places of industrial production. In the first section of the article, we discuss the conceptual base and benefits of integrating the GPN approach with an urban research perspective centred on the analysis of the built environment. In the second section, we operationalize these considerations in an analytical framework which we apply to a multi-local and relational case study of clothing manufacturing locations in the Istanbul metropolitan region in Turkey, the South Bulgarian province Kardzhali and the periphery of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. Our findings illuminate the site-specific, yet interdependent mutual transformation of global production networks and urban space, giving rise to transnational spatial formations such as dense industry clusters, dispersed production niches or clearly defined enclaves for export processing. At the same time, they underscore the agency of the built environment and urban planning in shaping the geography of globalized production.

Rights, Risks and Responsibilities in the Recruitment of Children within the Global Football Industry

This paper examines children’s engagement with the increasingly global and commercialised football industry. By combining a Global Production Network approach and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child it is argued that, for children’s rights and best interests to be better upheld and realised within the football industry, regulatory conditions need to account for geographical contextuality and incorporate scope for children to inform regulatory frameworks and practice. The paper highlights the importance of designing and implementing research that recognises and operationalises children’s agency, which can both inform and influence regulations and practices, better to reflect children’s best interests.

Buenos Aires as a gateway city: how it interlinks the Argentinean oil and gas sector globally

ABSTRACTWorld cites are critical nodes in global production networks (GPNs). Being ‘gateways’, they serve as hubs for transport and logistics, industrial processing, corporate control and service provision as well as knowledge transmission. In this article, the concept of gateway cities is applied to Buenos Aires and the oil and gas sector. The author explains processes of concentration and dispersal, showing that Buenos Aires concentrates corporate control, whereas the other gateway elements can also be found at peripheral locations. The competition of gateway cities and places subordinate to them relates to debates about downsides of integration into the global economy that may result from a gateway’s ‘agglomeration shadow’. From a conceptual perspective, the article brings the GPN approach and the world city literature together so as to better understand the territoriality of GPNs and draw attention to city-to-hinterland relations. Being an open heuristic, the concept allows for incorporating experiences from the Global South and overcoming the bias of the world city literature towards advanced producer services and corporate control. Against the backdrop of the findings on Buenos Aires, the author suggests to better recognize a city’s attractiveness as a place to live and work.

Re-articulating labour in global production networks: The case of street traders in Barcelona

The global production network approach constitutes a relational theorising of production processes, incorporating firm and non-firm actors, including the state, civil society and labour. Despite re...

Trading Sand, Undermining Lives: Omitted Livelihoods in the Global Trade in Sand

Sand is a scarce resource, extracted from rivers and coasts at rates that exceed its natural renewal. Yet, little is understood about the political economy of sand extraction, the livelihood vulnerabilities produced, or why sand grabbing is occurring at unprecedented rates in particular locations. Drawing together literature on global production network approaches in economic geography and debates on sustainable livelihoods in development geography—two literatures rarely in conversation with one another—we reveal the links between new, globalized, cross-border articulations of poverty and prosperity and the sand trade. We situate our sand case in Southeast Asia across three sites, namely, in Singapore, the world’s top sand importer; Cambodia, a top-ten global exporter of sand; and an emerging exporter, Myanmar. We examine how sand mining affects, directly and indirectly, a range of livelihoods, specifically fisheries in Cambodia, riverbank agriculture in Myanmar, and migrant labor in Singapore. Drawing on our empirical work, we argue that linking these two literatures with empirical data on sand provides an approach that is broad in its connections and simultaneously grounded in specific practices, places, and people. This enables us to better account for often overlooked aspects in the production, erosion, and transfer of value. Key Words: global production networks, livelihoods, precarity, sand mining, Southeast Asia.

Rethinking Path Creation: A Geographical Political Economy Approach

A burgeoning strand of evolutionary economic geography (EEG) research is addressing questions of regional path creation, based on the idea that place-specific legacies and conditions play a critical role in supporting the emergence of new economic activities. Yet there has been little effort thus far to take stock of this emerging body of research. In response, the aims of this article are to offer a fresh synthesis of recent work and to develop a broader theoretical framework to inform future research. First, it presents a critical appraisal of the state of the art in path creation research. In an effort to address identified gaps in EEG research, this incorporates insights from sociological perspectives, the global production networks approach, and transition studies. Second, the article’s development of a systematic theoretical framework is based on the identification of key dimensions of path creation and their constitutive interrelations. This contribution is underpinned by a geographical political economy (GPE) approach that provides the ontological basis for the integration of the five key dimensions of path creation within an overarching framework and the positioning of regional processes in relation to the broader dynamics of uneven development. Informed by GPE, the argument is that knowledgeable actors, operating within multiscalar institutional environments, create paths through the strategic coupling of regional and extraregional assets to mechanisms of path creation and associated markets. To inform further research, the article outlines four concrete propositions regarding the operation of path creation processes in different types of regions and explores these through case studies of Berlin and Pittsburgh.