Emerging research themes in global value chains

Arora, Anshu Saxena; Hartley, Nicole

doi:10.1108/ijoem-02-2020-603

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…In addition, most studies conducted on SC collaboration are in the context of developed countries (Wiengarten et al , 2010; Soosay and Hyland, 2015; Vlachos and Dyra, 2020). The characteristics of developed countries are different from emerging markets and as a result, some of the recommendations for SC collaboration may not be applicable in emerging markets (Arora and Hartley, 2020). Thus, our study supplements the inadequacy of research on SC collaboration in the context of emerging markets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In response to calls in the pertinent literature for research on SC collaboration in emerging markets (Flynn et al , 2014; Arora and Hartley, 2020), the findings of this research contribute to SC collaboration theory by proposing a model which underpins the driving forces and restraining forces of SC collaboration. In particular, this study pinpoints the amplification of these driving and restraining forces, based on the contextual realities of emerging markets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Restraining forces and drivers of supply chain collaboration: evidence from an emerging market

Oyedijo

Koukpaki²,

Kusi‐Sarpong

et al. 2021

SCM

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Purpose This paper aims to investigate how restraining forces and driving forces impact SC collaboration in the context of Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was adopted. Using semi-structured interviews, data was obtained from manufacturers and third-party logistics providers in Nigeria’s food and beverage sector. The data was analysed using the thematic analysis method. Findings Interesting findings were revealed regarding how some underlying forces impact SC collaboration. These findings were categorised into internal, SC and external environment level factors. However, certain forces were also identified at these distinct levels which can sustain the collaboration between SC partners in emerging markets such as Nigeria. Research limitations/implications The issues highlighted in this paper create opportunities for future studies to dig deeper into the concept of SC collaboration in emerging markets. Future studies may find other unique contextual factors which may influence SC collaboration asides from those identified in this paper. Practical implications This research aids managerial understanding of the restraining forces and drivers of SC collaboration in an emerging market. The research also provides new insights on how to manage SC collaboration in emerging markets. Originality/value Many studies on supply chain management have wholly focussed their attention on developed countries, often neglecting emerging markets such as Nigeria in the discourse. Although SC collaboration has been well researched, the study attempts to shift the attention to the most populous country in Africa. With the help of the force field theory, this research reveals new insights on the restraining forces and drivers of SC collaboration, offering the foundation for a new line of research on this subject in emerging markets.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Restraining forces and drivers of supply chain collaboration: evidence from an emerging market

Oyedijo

Koukpaki²,

Kusi‐Sarpong

et al. 2021

SCM

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“…manufacturing or assembling sectors) occur in the low end of GVCs (Meng et al , 2020; Meng and Ye, 2020), with a perceived lesser agility to adapt to shock (intuitively linked to lack of control). This could partly explain why developed countries’ services exports, developing countries’ goods exports and developing countries’ jobs in small firms (vs large firms) were hit harder by COVID-19 in the short run (Maliszewska et al , 2020; UNCTAD, 2020; Arora and Hartley, 2020). However, in the longer term, it was found that firms able to step in fast and capably have gained in power as non-leads and thus influence the resilience of a GVC.…”

Section: Interdependencies and Resilience Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical perspectives on GVC theory: uncovering GVC resilience through non-lead power

Suder,

Meng,

Yuning

2024

CPOIB

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Purpose In international business (IB), the discussion of COVID-19-related global value chain (GVC) models driving resilience has taken momentum since May 2020. The purpose of this study is to uncover insights that the pandemic provided as a unique research opportunity, holistically, revealing the significant role of non-lead firms in GVC outcomes and resilience. This allows to extend theory as the authors critically identify impact criteria and assess interdependence and valence, thus progressing the traditional (pre-pandemic) IB view of GVC governance and orchestration. Design/methodology/approach This study opts for an integrative review to help create a much-needed extension of IB theory by means of a critical perspective on GVC theory. The authors examine the extant body of IB literature as the relevant stock of collective IB knowledge prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, uncovering contributions – with a focus on the role of non-lead firms in orchestration and resilience – that allows to clarify what was not evident pre-pandemic. With this, the authors move the theory from its efficiency focus to a better recognition of the interdependencies of power and profit outcomes stemming from asymmetries of interrelationships. By design, the authors focus on the unique research period of the pandemic and orchestration complexities along the development of configurational arguments beyond simple correlations (Fiss, 2011), revealing key dependencies as key themes. The authors highlight further research avenues following Snyder (2019) that are called upon to strengthen that understanding and that helps extend theory. Findings This research provides a critical perspective on the application of the traditional IB views for GVC governance (designed for efficiency, cost and proximity to markets with pre-dominance for just in time), which has shifted during the pandemic to accommodate for adaptation and adjustment to resilience and just in case considerations. The holistic review reveals not only the key country- and multinational enterprise (MNE)-dependencies with residual impact determining the balance between just-in-time and just-in-case. Also, the authors advance the understanding of the (un)balance of the traditional GVC – focused on just-in-case rather than just-in-time through a lead and non-lead GVC participation and power lens yet rarely observed. The authors find that governance should not be construed as “management” such that it resolves into decisions undertaken in lead firms for execution in subordinate GVC participants. Autonomy allows to subsidiary units by MNE lead firms and/or exercised by (mainly, innovative) non-subsidiary GVC participant firms, is uncovered as a key driver in this. Greater delegation capacity appears to help provide resilience to loss in profit, with a recognition that there may be a dynamic trade-off between power and profit. In addition, the authors are able to identify correlations with innovation, demand elasticity, digital uptake, investment and other, that the authors trust will set the scene for additional research deepening and extending the findings. Research limitations/implications Integrative literature reviews include a problem formulation (i.e. that is limited to published topics around an emerging theme) and are hence very focused in nature and approach. This applies to this paper. Data analysis in this method is not typically using statistical methods in contrast to meta-analyses. Also, the authors limit the sample to a relatively short time period with 33 publications analysed, purposefully focusing on the most prompt and “acute” insights into GVCs during the pandemic. Practical implications The traditional GVC governance model is designed for efficiency, cost and proximity to markets with pre-dominance for just in time. The authors reveal dependencies that are instrumental to better understand lead and non-lead interaction and relative autonomy, with a focus on residual impact determining the balance between just-in-time and just-in-case that, if in the sought equilibrium and agile, can allow alignment with context and this resilience. This paper specifically provides practical insights and visualization that highlights stages/“ripple” effects and their impact and the questions to ask as stakeholders look for GVC resilience. This includes, int.al., firms and their role as strategic agents, prompting participants through the learnings from exogenous shock to realign their strategies, redistributed manufacturing of production across subsidiary and non-subsidiary non-lead firms, greater competition and hence power for suppliers leveraging resilience and innovation, greater understanding of localization and regionalization of production of essential supplies, interaction with governments, and of investment impacts abroad especially to secure GVC participation. Social implications The insights provided through this extension of theory with its literature review reveal the importance of aligning IB research into GVCs to factors that became visible through alternative or unusual settings, as they have the power to reveal the limitations of traditional views. In this case, a mainly efficiency-led, just-in-time focused GVC governance model is reviewed through the literature that emanated during the pandemic, with a critical perspective, which helped uncover and underline the complexities and evolution of GVC governance, providing fundamental support to solutioning the continuing global supply chain challenges that started as a result of the pandemic and are yet again accelerated by the Ukraine and Middle Eastern wars and its impact with, int.al., concerns over possible severe global food, labour/migration and resources crises. IB holds a social responsibility to help identify critical challenges from the disciplinary perspective and help advance resilience for social benefit. Originality/value This paper supports the original IB theory development by extending GVC theory into the lead – non-lead dynamics that may, under certain conditions, provide a “Resilience wall” for GVCs. The value created through insights stemming from a unique period of time for GVC is significant. It allows us thus also to pave the way to an emerging and critical research adaption looking into equilibrium, nuancing demand elasticity, better understanding trade and investment impacts along GVCs and more. By examining views on the sources of pandemic risks in a possibly unique setting, the authors offer added value from extant IB research insights by combining them, revealing the importance for GVCs to investigate not only key dependencies between the exogenous shock, i.e. context, and the impacts assessed through this literature but to further use their inherent value to create a framework for further conceptualization and extension of the traditional IB view on GVC governance. This work illustrates the urgency and importance for IB to take a timely and possibly more critical approach to the investigation of governance models that have, to date, shown some significant limitations.

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“…Due to the liabilities of being a latecomer, these firms possess lower levels of technological capabilities compared to their client firms from advanced economies (Ozturk, 2018). In addition, due to resource scarcity, lack of sophisticated demand and overall low technological knowledge available at home, these firms including vendor firms need to depend on various external mechanisms to learn from advanced economy firms and upgrade their technological capabilities (Arora and Hartley, 2020; Banerjee et al , 2015; Gubbi et al , 2010; Elia et al , 2020; Samant et al , 2020).…”

Section: Theory Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does R&D offshore outsourcing improve innovation in vendor firms from emerging economies? A study of biopharmaceutical industry in India

Thakur‐Wernz

Wernz

2020

IJOEM

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PurposeWhile the phenomenon of R&D offshoring has become increasingly popular, scholars have mostly focused on R&D offshore outsourcing from the point of view of the client firms, who are often from an advanced country. By examining vendor firms, in this paper the authors shift the focus to the second party in the dyadic relationship of R&D offshore outsourcing. Specifically, the authors compare vendor firms with nonvendor firms from the same emerging economy and industry to look at whether vendor firms from emerging economies can improve their innovation performance by learning from their clients. The authors also look at the role of depth and breadth of existing technological capabilities of the vendor firm in its ability to improve its innovation performance.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on firm-level data from the Indian biopharmaceutical industry between 2005 and 2016. The authors use the Heckman two-stage model to control for self-selection by firms. The authors compare the innovation performance of vendor firms with nonvendor biopharmaceutical firms (group vs nongroup analysis) as well as innovation performance across vendor firms (within group comparison).FindingsThe authors find that, compared to nonvendor firms, R&D offshore outsourcing vendor firms from emerging economies have higher innovation performance. The authors argue that this higher innovation performance among vendor firms is due to learning from their clients. Among vendor firms, the authors find that the innovation gains are contingent upon the two factors of depth and breadth of the vendor firms' technological capabilities.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper makes three contributions: First, the authors augment the nascent stream of research on innovation from emerging economy firms. The authors introduce a new mechanism for emerging economy firms to learn and upgrade their capabilities. Second, the authors contribute to the literature on global value chains, by showing that vendor firms are able to learn from their clients and upgrade their capabilities. Third, by examining the innovation by vendor firms, the authors contribute to the R&D offshore outsourcing, which has largely focused on the client.Practical implicationsThe study findings have important implications for both clients and vendors. For client firms, the authors provide evidence that knowledge spillovers do happen, and R&D offshore outsourcing can turn vendors into potential competitors. This research helps firms from emerging economies by showing that becoming vendors for R&D offshore outsourcing is a viable option to learn from foreign firms and improve innovation performance. Going outside geographic boundaries may be a large hurdle for these resource-strapped, emerging economy firms. Providing offshore outsourcing services for narrow slices of R&D activities may be a starting point for these firms to upgrade their capabilities.Originality/valueThis paper is among the first to quantitatively study the innovation performance of vendor firms from emerging economies. The authors also contribute to the nascent literature on innovation in emerging economy firms by showing that providing R&D offshore outsourcing services to client firms from advanced countries can improve firms' innovation performance.

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Emerging research themes in global value chains

Cited by 4 publications

References 11 publications

Restraining forces and drivers of supply chain collaboration: evidence from an emerging market

Restraining forces and drivers of supply chain collaboration: evidence from an emerging market

Critical perspectives on GVC theory: uncovering GVC resilience through non-lead power

Does R&D offshore outsourcing improve innovation in vendor firms from emerging economies? A study of biopharmaceutical industry in India

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