Global Value Chain Approach Research Articles

Global value chain approach and micro-level analysis: a innovative framework of analytical elements and future research opportunities

Global value chain approach and micro-level analysis: a innovative framework of analytical elements and future research opportunities

The irruption of autonomous and connected vehicle technologies and the repositioning of the periphery in the European automotive industry

PurposeAutonomous and connected mobility technologies have led to a reconfiguration of the automotive industry value chain. This may involve an impact on the geography of the European automotive industry, especially for peripheral countries. The aim of the paper is to analyse the repositioning of a peripheral country (Portugal) in the core-periphery model of the automotive industry derived from this new technological context.Design/methodology/approachAn eclectic theoretical framework, based on the global value chain (GVC) approach, the spatial division of labour and location theory, supports this research. Moreover, an original empirical study was developed. This study comprised a comparative analysis of two samples of firms based on the key variables related to country position. One sample comprised Portuguese traditional automotive firms and the other Portuguese firms linked to autonomous and connected mobility technologies.FindingsThe results highlight the upgrading of Portugal in the European core-periphery model of the automotive industry. This is due to the presence of domestic firms, especially multinationals, linked to autonomous and connected mobility technologies in the country. The decision power derived from their position on the first levels of supply and the added value of activities and technological innovation of these new actors change the role of the country in the European automotive industry. The main implication is that managers of domestic firms and policy makers in peripheral countries can upgrade a country’s position in the European core-periphery model by shifting its competitiveness toward knowledge-based activities linked to the new mobility technologies.Originality/valueThis research is supported by a novel eclectic theoretical framework based on the global value chain (GVC) approach, the spatial division of labour and location theory. Moreover, country position is analysed through empirical evidence. An original comparative empirical study based on the key variables defined under this theoretical framework was developed.

Overseas operations, global value chain position and technological innovation

Based on a sample of Chinese listed companies with overseas operations from 2010 to 2020, this study empirically studies the impact of multinational corporations (MNCs) overseas expansion on their technological innovation and the moderating effect of the global value chain position. Based on the combination of internalization innovation theory and global value chain approach, the results of this study show an inverted U-shaped relationship between overseas operations of MNCs and technological innovation due to the simultaneous existence of the learning effect, advantages of economies of scale, internal and external coordination costs, and technology spillover risk, and the above positive and negative effects play different roles at different stages of MNCs’ overseas operations. The moderating effects test find that global value chain position strengthens the positive effect of low degree of overseas operations and weakens the negative effect of high degree of overseas operations on technological innovation. Furthermore, this study also distinguishes the heterogeneity of industry attributes and subsidiary types.

Aquaculture and global value chain: bibliometric analysis using the VOSviewer

This study aims to map and identify trends in the worldwide scientific production related to Global Value Chain (GVC) approach and aquaculture. A bibliometric analysis was employed using articles and reviews from the Scopus database. The software VOSviewer was used to visualize authors, institutions, journals, country distribution, references, and keywords. As results, the study analyzed the co-citation of authors in 29 publications and found that Gary Gereffi and Stefano Ponte were consistently cited together, indicating their importance in the GVC approach literature. Additionally, in the aquaculture field the analysis showed a greater centrality of researchers such as Simon R. Bush, David C. Little and Ben Belton. Five thematic groups were identified through bibliometric analysis of keyword co-occurrence in the literature. These include GVC and aquaculture topics, as well as clusters focused on GVC pillars (upgrading and governance). The last cluster is concerned primarily with production systems and certification standards for aquaculture farms. Additionally, we identified emerging topics in the literature that we believe could be connected to COVID-19. Finally, we argue that aquaculture needs significant changes in regulations, management and financing to be sustainable. In this sense, investigations that examine aquaculture value chains under a holistic GVC approach can help achieve this goal.

Value chains and market access for aquaculture products

AbstractAquaculture contributes significantly to global food security, poverty alleviation, and international fish trade. Aquaculture products have become some of the most globalized food commodities, attracting the interest of diverse stakeholders that scrutinize industry developments, through the lenses of the global value chain (GVC) approach to analyze and understand the dynamics and roles at value chain nodes of key players, economic costs and benefits, value addition and value creation and to develop policy options and suitable market instruments for the promotion of sustainable aquaculture. Key characteristics of the aquaculture GVC are that most of the production takes place in developing countries, involving mostly small‐scale operators, while 60 to 70% of the demand (in value) occurs in Europe, North America, and Japan. As a consequence, the institutional and operational capacity of the producing countries is challenged to comply with increasingly demanding regulations and standards for consumer protection, social, and environmental requirements in order to participate actively in the aquaculture GVC. This article reviews the current status and the issues facing aquaculture value chains. It focuses on the challenges and perspectives for aquaculture value chain development, their main drivers, implications, and opportunities for the future of the aquaculture GVC.

STRUKTUR TATA KELOLA EKONOMI LOKAL DALAM SEKTOR KERAJINAN GERABAH

The declining export value of pottery in West Nusa Tenggara Province became a trend since 2006-2007. There are atleast two basic reasons of this significant decreasing, first the lessening numbers of export caused by global economic crisis, second the lack of competitiveness of the sector. The article questions about the structure of governance of the industry. Focusing on the issue will bring explanation what caused the industry has a quite low competitiveness in global market. The research itself is a qualitative research with global value chain approach. The study shows that there are two types of governance structure in the industry. The buyer-driven type of governance is built between local producer and global buyer in international trade context, while a more equal structure established in local market between local producer dan local buyer, or called as producer-driven with arms-length character. Meanwhile, the lack of competitiveness is also caused by the upgrading capacity, which tends to be a more static upgrading. The lack of upgrading capacity happened due to rents drain, where the rents that once existed in the community are getting dim due to the role of the government in building synergy and rents is considered small.

Measuring the Income to Intangibles in Goods Production: A Global Value Chain Approach

Measuring the Income to Intangibles in Goods Production: A Global Value Chain Approach

Measuring the Income to Intangibles in Goods Production: A Global Value Chain Approach

Measuring the Income to Intangibles in Goods Production: A Global Value Chain Approach

CADEIAS GLOBAIS DE VALOR E SISTEMAS NACIONAIS DE INOVAÇÃO: UMA INTEGRAÇÃO TENSA

ABSTRACT This study explores the recent attempts to integrate global value chain (GVC) and national innovation system (NIS) frameworks and the extent to which it might be unachievable coherently. These recent integration attempts disregard the tension between the organizational boundaries of multinational corporations (MNC) and the national space - as a locus of learning and generation of technologies - in two ways. First, the GVC approach assimilates microeconomic upgrading to learning and innovation, which might fail to account for systemic learning processes and structural competitiveness. Second, the GVC approach assimilates production to capital circulation, which is consistent with the logic that dominates the expansion of MNCs during financialization, which is more oriented to appropriation than to the international deployment of technology. We resort to Marx’s decomposition of production and circulation processes to assess different internationalisation processes: trade internationalisation, productive internationalisation, and financial internationalisation. This analysis provides some insights to understand the limits of both approaches and the integration attempts to cope with the actual process of internationalization of production.

The Motor Vehicles Industry in Slovakia, 2005 – 2015

This note examines the evolution of the Slovak motor vehicles sector during 2005-2015, drawing on the latest update (December 2018) of OECD's Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) model database. The review takes a global value chain (GVC) approach and looks at the linkages from the gross production and value added perspectives. The overall contribution of the motor vehicles sector to Slovakia's gross production and domestic value added increased twofold during the reference period. There was an ongoing change in the structure of the GVC linkages. The reliance on domestically-sourced inputs increased over the years. The (indirect) value added created in the production of domestically-sourced inputs gradually approached the level of the (direct) value added generated within the motor vehicles sector. Subsequent to the global financial crisis, the share of intermediate goods in exports, the forward linkage of the GVC, and the upstreamness of the production process were all on a rising trend. The sourcing pattern of imports of intermediate inputs and the market for exports steadily shifted away from the euro area towards non-EU countries. It is estimated that a hypothetical 10 percent negative shock to global final demand for motor vehicles would lower Slovak GDP growth by 1 percentage point.

Chasing Funds: Start-ups from a Global Value Chains Approach

This article investigates the role of Brazilian legislation in the (re)production of subordinate forms of incorporation of peripheral countries in global value chains (GVCs) through new dynamics for the extraction of value intermediated by international systems of investment. The purpose is to show how financial deregulation contributes to “putting-out” research and development (R&D) labs of major brands, and serves as a way of exploring casual and flexible hiring schemes for skilled workers. To this end, the article explores the financing policies for the Brazilian innovation system, whose aim is to promote the inclusion of higher value-added activities in the GVCs through the connection of national innovative micro-enterprises to direct financial investments, a strategy considered fundamental to boost the country’s industrialisation. The analysis focuses on two Calls for Funds for technology-based start-ups, a category of micro-business where investments have been stimulated due to such policies. The results reveal how leading companies in global value chains have been using this rentier development model to reduce costs in R&D activities by sharing the risks of innovation and transferring labour charges to start-ups, advancing the casualisation of work for skilled workers. In this context, casual employment with no labour rights has turned countries at a low level of industrialisation, like Brazil, into an attraction to the dynamics of the CGVs. KEYWORDS: start-ups; global value chains; production funding; casualisation of work; putting-out system

Regional analysis of aquaculture value chain: Study of tilapia production zones in Brazil

This study provides a broad discussion on the tilapia culture chain in Brazil. It aims to analyse the business environments of tilapia culture zones in Brazil, supported by the Global Value Chain (GVC) approach. For this purpose, this study used a wide range of multidimensional indicators collected from tilapia production units (TPUs) and distributed in four selected and categorised production zones (TPZs). Based on fuzzy modelling, this analysis was carried out by comparing multidimensional indexes of business environments estimated by a fuzzy inference system. The research concluded that more verticalized governance models are more promising for the development and internationalisation of the chain in Brazil. It also concluded that in productive arrangements where these forms are not fully dominant, the regional role of competent suppliers, associated with active technical assistance, could play a key role for technological development at the TPU level. However, it points out that the coordination of fish farmers in the value chain should take into account regional aspects, and alternative forms of verticalization. Additionally, it was highlighted that the synergy of this chain with other more internationalised agri-food segments, such as poultry and pork, can be a key element in overcoming future obstacles arising from a global integration process. Moreover, the main configurations and barriers faced by each productive zone in the current scenario and the challenges related to an eventual institutional upgrading necessary to meet international marketing standards are also highlighted. Finally, the study proposes a research agenda that expands the range of quantitative and micro studies in the field of GVC, seeking to better understand, from multiple perspectives and scopes, the possible effects and results associated with the internationalisation of the aquaculture chains of the Global South.

Internationality of value chain activities and the export orientation of micro- and small family businesses in Western Austria

Based on a sample of 461 micro- and small family businesses in Western Austria, this study aimed to analyze the degree of internationalization of individual activities in the value chain and their influence on the export probability of family firms. The results show that exporting and non-exporting micro- and small family businesses are internationalized in different value chain activities and can partly explain the export probability. The resource-based view (RBV) can only be used to a limited extent to explain the export activities of micro- and small family firms, and certain firm-specific and individual-decision-maker characteristics can significantly explain export probability. The findings suggest that a) micro- and small family firms take different paths of internationalization concerning their value chain and b) that the global value chain (GVC) approach should be integrated into theoretical concepts to obtain an improved explanatory model of the internationalization behavior of (family) businesses.

Untapping the Full Development Potential of Trade Along Global Supply Chains: ‘GVCs for LDCs’ Proposal

There is clear evidence that existing preferential schemes contributed significantly to boosting least-developed country (LDC) exports (Klasen et al., 2016). Many seem to believe the multilateral trading system could offer little to LDCs as they have already obtained market access to critical markets under the current preferential schemes. Despite the LDCs’ reluctance to positively engage in recent WTO discussions, there is room for the global trading system and new multilateral initiatives to promote the participation of LDCs in global value chains (GVCs). Given that LDC exports are often further processed and ‘travel’ down the GVCs as part of third-country exports still facing tariffs, one could envisage a global preferential scheme based on LDC value-added, i.e., products originating in any WTO members should receive an ‘LDC preferential treatment’ proportionate to the value of LDC’s inputs content embodied in their exports, whenever exported to any other WTO member. We conceptualize this new ‘GVCs for LDCs’ proposal and estimate its economic potential using a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling framework. If LDC preferential market access is changed from the simple ‘direct export’ approach (e.g., the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP)-like schemes currently in operation) to a GVC approach, LDC exports would receive a considerable boost (a 2.5% annual increase worth over USD 10 billion per year) and increased market premium for their products. WTO, World Trade Organisation, CGE modelling, GTAP, development, Least Developed Countries, LDCs, global value chains, GVC, Generalized System of Preferences, GSP

The dilemma of domestic suppliers on the periphery of the automotive industry global value chain

PurposeUnder the global value chain (GVC) approach, this paper aims to analyze how domestic suppliers on the periphery of the automotive industry are affected by their relationship with foreign multinationals.Design/methodology/approachA case study with primary data collected from foreign multinationals operating in the Mexican automotive industry was used to analyze their relationship with domestic suppliers.FindingsThe evolution of the suppliers has been characterized by improved quality and added value in their products and more asset-intensive, efficient processes. This evolution has been driven by improvement in production capabilities and investment in new equipment by domestic suppliers and facilitated by knowledge transfer from foreign multinationals. However, it has not involved the acquisition of innovation capabilities or the internationalization of production activities. This has limited their position on the first levels of the value chain and their global presence, which are essential aspects when climbing the industry value chain to lead some activities at a global level. At the same time, most of these suppliers have become strategic and have a greater dependence on foreign multinationals. This poses a dilemma for domestic firms, as the relationship with these multinationals becomes more intense and dependent and at the same time reduces the possibility of leading activities in the value chain.Originality/valueThe paper analyzes the impact on domestic suppliers of their relationships with foreign multinationals, integrating traditional product, process and functional upgrading and new elements, in particular, participation in the GVC and dependence on multinationals.

Collectivism, individualism and solidarity in global value chain restructuring in the Global North: Workers' resistance in the Swiss machinery industry.

Global value chains (GVCs) have become the dominant form of industrial organization in the global economy. Although the economic outcomes of GVC restructuring have been measured and the determinants theorized, there is a lack of empirical research on the real processes of GVC restructuring and its impact on labour in the Global North. This article helps to address this gap by investigating the effect of the participation in GVCs on the lead firms’ value-capturing strategies and on workers’ ability to defend and improve their working conditions in the Swiss machinery industry. Based on a critical GVC approach and a qualitative study of two work conflicts, the study demonstrates how GVCs shape a variety of new strategies for capital and labour; enhancing forms of management strategies and weakening the possibilities for workers’ counterstrategies by eroding collectivism and solidarity and promoting individualism among workers.

INTEGRATION OF FARMERS AND PROCESSING INDUSTRY IN THE AQUACULTURE VALUE CHAIN IN TOCANTINS, BRAZIL

Most of the fish farmed by small scale Brazilian fish farmers in Brazil is sold directly to local markets without passing through a processing industry. The integration between small-scale fish farmers and the processing industry is restricted to few cooperatives, mainly in the southern region. Although many fish processing plants are operating in different regions, most producers do not have access to them. The lack of integration creates several problems, including low quality of fish due to the absence of sanitary control, informality, impossibility to access supermarkets, and low added value. This paper is based on a case study of aquaculture in the Brazilian state of Tocantins, by using the Global Value Chain approach. The methodology consists of a qualitative process based on face-to-face interviews with value chain agents. The main results indicate that the processing industries are increasing their own production and implementing supply contracts with large producers. More vertical governance is emerging with a high level of control by the industries. Thus, many small-scale fish farmers are being excluded from the value chain.

Mechanistic Framework of Global Value Chains

Indeed, the global production (as a system of creating values) is eventually forming like a gigantic and complex network/web of value chains that explains the transitional structures of global trade and development of the global economy. It's truly a new wave of globalisation, and we term it as the global value chains (GVCs), creating the nexus among firms, workers and consumers around the globe. The emergence of this new scenario asks: how an economy's firms, producers and workers connect in the global economy. And how are they capturing the gains out of it in terms of different dimensions of economic development? This GVC approach is very crucial for understanding the organisation of the global industries and firms. It requires the statics and dynamics of diverse players involved in this complex global production network. Its broad notion deals with different global issues (including regional value chains also) from the top down to the bottom up, founding a scope for policy analysis (Gereffi & Fernandez-Stark 2011). But it is true that, as Feenstra (1998) points out, any single computational framework is not sufficient to quantification this whole range of economic activities. We should adopt an integrative framework for accurate projection of this dynamic multidimensional phenomenon.

Research Methods of Assessing Global Value Chains

The global production (as a system of creating values) is eventually forming a vast web of value chains that explains the transitional structures of global trade and development of the world economy. It is truly a new wave of globalisation, and we can term it as the global value chains (GVCs), creating the nexus among firms, workers and consumers around the globe. The emergence of this new scenario is asking how an economy's businesses, producers and employees are connecting to the global economy and capturing the gains out of it regarding different dimensions of economic development. Indeed, this GVC approach is very crucial for understanding the organisation of the global industries (including firms) through analysing the statics and dynamics of different economic players involved in this complex global production network. Its widespread notion deals with various global issues (including regional value chains also) from the top down to the bottom up, founding a scope for policy analysis.

An Analysis of the Trade Structure in Korean Food Industry using a Global Value Chain Approach

An Analysis of the Trade Structure in Korean Food Industry using a Global Value Chain Approach