Supplier Upgrading in the Home-furnishing Value Chain: An Empirical Study of IKEA’s Sourcing in China and South East Asia

Ivarsson, Inge; Alvstam, Claes G.

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2010.04.007

Cited by 72 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Ultimately, the level of innovation is similar. The processes can be illustrated by an example of three suppliers within the captive global value chains of IKEA (see also Ivarsson & Alvstam ). Before co‐operation commences, IKEA conducts business audits.…”

Section: Absorptive Capacity As a Mediatormentioning

confidence: 99%

Absorptive Capacity as a Mediator: Innovation of Handicraft Exporters in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Fransen

Helmsing

2016

Tijd voor Econ & Soc Geog

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Innovation processes in emerging economies tend to differ from those in developed countries in that a larger share of firms absorb existing knowledge. The paper assesses how firms' absorptive capacity mediates the impact of global value chains on the innovation of handicraft exports in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The study draws three conclusions. First, the incremental innovation of craft exporters demands specific but rather mundane absorptive capacities of firms, such as language abilities and capable departments. Second, and contrary to what might be expected, the study finds that the governance modes of global value chains do not significantly affect the level of innovation. Third, a group of traders have the highest level of innovation, the highest level of absorptive capacity, and they positively affect the innovation of suppliers. Overall, the findings show that knowledge diffusion is furthered within an emerging local innovation system.

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Section: Absorptive Capacity As a Mediatormentioning

confidence: 99%

Absorptive Capacity as a Mediator: Innovation of Handicraft Exporters in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Fransen

Helmsing

2016

Tijd voor Econ & Soc Geog

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“…Combining these streams of research, there has been a limited, but suggestive body of studies that provide plausible explanations for how the opportunities of supplier upgrading are conditioned by the relational structures in which local producers interact with global buyers [24]. Most prominently, Ernst and Kim [25] pioneered the idea of theorizing local supplier upgrading in relation to the strategic coupling with the requirements of GPNs.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sustainability of Global Chain Governance: Network Structures and Local Supplier Upgrading in Thailand

Cho

Lim

2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:Although it has been widely accepted that insertion into global production networks may play a critical role in fostering local supplier upgrading, scholars have yet to fully incorporate heterogeneous configurations of buyer-supplier relationships within networks into empirical testing. Using a representative sample of manufacturing firms in Thailand, we propose a more nuanced empirical framework that asks which features of buyer-supplier relationships are related to which aspects of local supplier upgrading. Our findings, derived from latent class analysis, show that the ways value chains are governed can exert varying effects on different types of technological upgrading. Being a multinational corporation (MNC) supplier was found to have positive effects on process and minor product upgrading, irrespective of the types of buyer-supplier networks. However, we found a more radical type of upgrading (i.e., the development of own brands) to be negatively related to insertion into 'quasi-hierarchical' or 'buyer-driven relationships', whilst involvement in 'cooperative networks' was associated with a significantly higher tendency of product and brand upgrading. Understanding this inherent relationality provides a crucial balance to previous firm-level findings, suggesting that the sustainability of participation in global value chains depends on the relational structures in which local manufacturers are embedded.

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“…This took the form of long term negotiated strategic commitments (Baraldi, 2008;Ghauri et al, 2008), which increased network embeddedness for example in the Polish transitional economy of the 1990s (Dawson, 2001). Sourcing has always focused on large volumes of standardised products to maintain low prices, however, a recent trend is a return to local (regional) market sourcing due to increasing costs and lengthening lead times (Ivarsson and Alvstam, 2010). The increase in chain scale at regional level enables purchasing economies to be negotiated at that level.…”

Section: Resource and Infrastructure Elements (Eco-system)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whilst the general assortment of an IKEA store is the same around the world -comprising around 9,500 items of which approximately 2,000 are new products introduced every year (Ivarsson and Alvstam, 2010) -not every store in every market carries every product. There is some range variation to reflect the local market.…”

Section: Consumer Facing Elementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

International retailing as embedded business models

2015

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International Retailing as Embedded Business Models AbstractAs retailers internationalise they interact with diverse socio-political-economic environments and the activities, processes, behaviours and outputs underpinning their business models evolve over time and space. Retailers are not passive, and through managerial agency they interpret the environment to compete and further their own commercial aims. Consequently, mutual interaction with the host environment means that changes may also occur in the established institutional norms in a market. Most existing studies have focused on the implications of territorial embeddedness for internationalising retailers. In this paper we also consider the societal and network forms of embeddedness identified by Hess, and illustrate how retailers transfer, negotiate and adapt their business model as they embed themselves in different institutional environments. A case study of IKEA is used to illustrate the synthesis of these two frameworks.

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Supplier Upgrading in the Home-furnishing Value Chain: An Empirical Study of IKEA’s Sourcing in China and South East Asia

Cited by 72 publications

References 17 publications

Absorptive Capacity as a Mediator: Innovation of Handicraft Exporters in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Absorptive Capacity as a Mediator: Innovation of Handicraft Exporters in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The Sustainability of Global Chain Governance: Network Structures and Local Supplier Upgrading in Thailand

International retailing as embedded business models

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