Transnational Corporations, Global Production Networks, and Urban and Regional Development: A Geographer's Perspective onMultinational Enterprises and the Global Economy

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
HENRY WAI-CHUNG YEUNG
Author(s):  
Tim Bartley

A vast new world of transnational standards has emerged, covering issues from human rights to sustainability to food safety. This chapter develops a framework for making sense of this new global order. It is tempting to imagine that global rules can and should bypass corrupt, incapacitated, or illegitimate governments in poor and middle-income countries. This assumption must be rejected if we want to understand the consequences of global rules and the prospects for improvement. After showing how a combination of social movements, global production networks, and neoliberalism gave rise to transnational private regulation, the chapter builds the foundations for the comparative approach of this book. The book’s comparative analysis of land and labor in Indonesia and China sheds light on two key fields of transnational governance, their implications in democratic and authoritarian settings, and the problems of governing the global economy through private regulation.


Information ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 420
Author(s):  
Haiying Xu ◽  
Wei-Ling Hsu ◽  
Yee-Chaur Lee ◽  
Tian-Yow Chern ◽  
Shr-Wei Luo

The recent literature concerning globalizing regional development has placed significant emphasis on the Global Production Network (GPN 2.0). GPN 2.0 in economic geography emphasizes that regional growth is caused by a shift in the strategic coupling mode from a low to high level. In addition, GPN 2.0 regards firm-level value capture trajectories as key analytical object, rather than the interactive relationships among scalar and divergent actors in GPN 1.0. To provide a better understanding of causal linkages between the GPNs and uneven regional development in the background of globalization and to test the applicability of GPN 2.0 analysis framework, the paper analyzed 62 Korean-invested automotive firms in Jiangsu Province, China. In order to explore the value capture trajectories of lead firms in the GPNs, the authors applied K-means clustering method to quantitatively analyze the local supply networks of lead firms from organizational and spatial dimensions. Then, comparisons were made between strategic coupling modes of GPNs and regional development in North and South Jiangsu. This study found obvious similarities within these two regions but obvious differences between them in terms of value capture trajectories. We observed that North Jiangsu is currently in the stage of “structural coupling”, whereas South Jiangsu is in the stage of “functional coupling.” Thus, this article argues that spatial settings such as regional assets and autonomy are key factors influencing uneven economic development. This research may provide a crucial reference for the regional development of Jiangsu, China.


Author(s):  
Alexandra Hughes

This chapter charts the contribution of economic geography to the field of research concerned with corporate social responsibility (CSR) and standards. Following explanation of the historical and political–economic context of CSR and the rise of codes and standards as tools in the private regulation of the global economy, it places the critical spotlight on studies of ethical and labour standards in global supply chains. Within this area, the different critical insights into CSR and standards offered by the global value chains and global production networks frameworks, as well as postcolonial critique, theories of governmentality, and sociologies of standards and marketization, are summarized and debated. Finally, the chapter discusses some of the recent economic, geographical, and regulatory challenges to the ways in which CSR and standards are operating and transforming in practice, from the global economic downturn to the influence of ‘rising powers’ and emerging economies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-237
Author(s):  
Eunyeong Song ◽  
Douglas R. Gress ◽  
Edo Andriesse

The purpose of this article is to examine the multi-spatial and developmental dynamics of the cinnamon industry in Sri Lanka, the largest exporter in the world by value added. This contribution compares Karandeniya, a major traditional cultivating hub, and Matale, a region new to cinnamon cultivation, deploying a Global Production Network (GPN) framework inclusive of regional development considerations. Analyses, based on input from 23 semi-structured, in-depth interviews, examine the potential for all stakeholders to acquire equity or ‘how’ captured value influences the region ‘and’ individual actors over the course of development. Fieldwork reveals four upstream actors in the cinnamon industry, namely—farmers, peelers, collectors and exporting firms. Results indicate that the cinnamon boom led to strategic decoupling with the exporting firms in Colombo and subsequent strategic recoupling with other actors. The primary contribution of the research rests in the interpretation of resulting structural changes in each region from a bifurcated view of regional development. Based on regional economic growth, Karandeniya appears to be more successful. However, considering the extent of value distribution within the region, Matale is on a more inclusive trajectory vis-à-vis cinnamon exports. Based on these results, three implications for GPN theory and related development policy are suggested.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 973-993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Vicol ◽  
Niels Fold ◽  
Bill Pritchard ◽  
Jeffrey Neilson

Abstract Recent advances in global production network theory, known as GPN 2.0, provide a theoretically sophisticated framework for understanding the articulation of global production systems with regional development trajectories. However, this framework was largely derived from lessons out of empirical analyses of the strategic coupling and value capture trajectories of firms in certain manufacturing and service sector ‘hot spots’, primarily in East and Southeast Asia, and its wider applicability for other contexts remains uncertain. This paper aims to address this lacuna by examining the potential for GPN 2.0 to understand regional development trajectories in agricultural production landscapes in the Global South dominated by smallholder-based farms that generate outputs for national and international markets. The distinctive characteristics of smallholders throw up significant challenges for the explanatory applicability of GPN 2.0 for rural development, at least as it has been developed so far. A key challenge is that smallholders cannot be considered equivalent to ‘firms’ as conceived in GPN 2.0. To overcome this problem, this paper argues for bringing a livelihoods perspective to bear on GPN 2.0. We illustrate the usefulness of this approach through reference to a case study of potato contract farming in Maharastra, India.


2012 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 83-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erol Taymaz ◽  
Ebru Voyvoda

AbstractThe paper discusses the main characteristics of Turkey's experience of neoliberal industrialization since 1980. We suggest that Turkey has been a “successful follower” in the sense that it has achieved structural transformation in manufacturing output and exports, while its mode of articulation with the global economy has remained intact. To follow our premise, we first provide a comparative overview of the dynamics of growth, productivity, employment and trade in the post-1980 period. We focus on the manufacturing industry because it has evolved as the leading sector in the restructuring of the economy away from domestic demand-oriented import substitution towards export orientation and integration with global production networks. To analyze the direction of structural change in a comparative perspective, we also offer a synopsis of divergent patterns of development in Turkey and Korea. Our brief comparison emphasizes that, while Korea has rapidly changed the structure of its industry and mode of articulation with the world economy with the sense of direction provided by a pro-active state and a far-reaching industrial policy, Turkey has remained a follower ever trying to reach its moving target.


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