The trouble with global production networks

Abstract

Some sympathetic critics have recently found trouble with the latest iteration of the global production networks theory (GPN 2.0) developed in economic geography. I term these immanent critiques “GPN trouble” and address them in this Exchanges paper in relation to GPN 2.0’s conceptualization of value and risk and its perceived “missing” elements of the state, labour, and so on. Reiterating briefly its core tenet, I first demonstrate GPN 2.0’s modest role as a meso theory of industrial organization and economic development in an interconnected world economy. I argue that empirical analysis based on GPN 2.0 must open up the “black box” of production networks in order to evaluate the causal links between network dynamics and uneven development outcomes. Second, I show how understanding these causal links can provide better answers to the crucial question of “in what sense a GPN problem?” Addressing both issues appropriately will likely reduce the sort of “GPN trouble” one might encounter in future research on global economic restructuring during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Different roots, intertwined branches: linking International Business and Economic Geography through the Uppsala Model and Global Production Network

“…Yeung (2020) argues that production networks are in trouble due to COVID-19. Countries and people have experienced severe disruption in global supply chains that englobes shortages of critical medical supplies to certain essential food products and even toilet paper.…”

“…The concept of GPNs, developed primarily in Economic Geography from the Manchester School of Geography (Yeung, 2020; Yeung and Coe, 2015), is rooted in four different historical antecedents: (1) the value chain framework in strategic management since the early 1980s; (2) the networks and embeddedness perspectives in economic and organizational sociology since the mid-1980s; (3) the actor–network analysis in science studies since the mid-1980s; (4) the global commodity (GCC)/value chain (GVC) analysis in economic sociology and development studies since the mid-1990s (Hess and Yeung, 2006).…”

“…GPN 2.0 theory allows for an actor-centered conceptualization of the causal mechanisms shaping the differentiated organization of GPNs in diverse industries and territories (Yeung and Coe, 2015). As no theory is complete and explains everything, GPN 2.0 has also been criticized by some (Yeung, 2020).…”

Motorsport Valley revisited: Cluster evolution, strategic cluster coupling and resilience

“…There remains more to be investigated around the processes of strategic coupling (Yeung, 2021) and even more so for SCC, but the paper has provided one of the first extended attempts to utilise this concept in seeking to understand the recent development path and lifecycle of one of the world's iconic clusters.…”

Resilience Decoded: The Role of Firms, Global Value Chains, and the State in COVID-19 Medical Supplies

“…Beyond its economic role, the state is a political institution for collective action. 16 The state can use its asymmetric power in GVCs as a "weapon" to push home-country interests by leveraging that power to coerce others. 17 Inclusive and sustainable development concerns may lead policymakers to depart from probusiness views.…”