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Research on the strategic coupling between regions and global lead firms has largely assumed that the regional assets for coupling are ready made and are largely unchanging throughout the coupling process. This article takes this assumption as its critical point of departure and presents a new framework that considers how regional assets are actively (re)configured across multiple scales in ways that could redefine the prevailing mode of strategic coupling. The empirical basis of this framework is derived from a long-term case study on the formation and evolution of Sino-German production networks in environmental goods and services (EGS) in Jieyang, a relatively peripheral city in Guangdong province in China. The analysis draws from thirty-three interviews and seven focus group discussions, conducted between 2014 and 2020, with nonstate and state actors in Jieyang. Findings highlight how Zhongde, a coalition of Jieyang-based firms, transcended the limitations of structural coupling, which exemplifies uneven power relations between regions and lead firms, and attained more balanced coupling relations with German-led EGS global production networks (GPNs) through realigning interests with those of national-level institutions. Responding positively to the structural constraints and opportunities within a Chinese state structure based on experimental governance, Zhongde connected German EGS lead firms to the highly profitable but protected EGS market in China. This ability to jump between scales underscores the cross-scalar and dynamic aspects of strategic coupling: Zhongde was able to meet German-led EGS GPNs’ demand for market access and enhanced localization economies through reconfiguring regional assets. Abstracting from these findings, the article enhances the explanation of the evolution of strategic coupling by conceptualizing its intrinsic dynamism and incorporating state structural effects. Finally, it presents two directions for further research on GPN reconfigurations.

For countries that have only aggregate (‘competitive type’) input–output (IO) tables, value added in exports is commonly estimated using the ‘proportionality assumption’ to separate imported-inputs...

This study presents a new method to analyse the impact of exogenous shock and its transmission mechanism within the global production network, based on scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic. We decompose domestic and international technology spillovers and introduce them into an economic growth model to investigate the elasticities of factor inputs and knowledge spillovers through industrial linkages, and eventually estimate a model with spatial specifications. The results from the scenario simulations suggest that the global total output is projected to fall by 3.60% and 8.41% under the V-shaped and L-shaped recovery scenarios, respectively, and that the propagation through input-output linkages is an important channel that causes global economic fluctuations. Economies at the hub of the production network, that is, the United States, China, and Germany, are the most seriously affected. Structural decomposition analysis results indicate that the shortage of intermediate inputs supply is the main driver of output decline, followed by the blockage of technology diffusion, and lastly, the reduction of labour supply. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Given today’s demand shift for product variants triggered by different market segments, manufacturing companies are facing high degrees of complexity, when utilising their global production network...

In addition to wildlife conservation, Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programmes aim to foster regional development. To achieve this, communal areas couple to tourism Global Pro...

The analytical tools provided by the global production network (GPN) approach may not be equal to the complexity of the strategic coupling process, as they fail to address the extra-GPN forces invo...

Over the last few decades, the changing nature of global production and distribution processes has raised a number of critical questions regarding work and employment relations. Presenting a qualit...

This paper examines regional distribution of indigenous lead firms in global production networks (GPNs). The paper triangulates unique evidence at the firm-level from a large innovation survey, ext...

Drawing upon the notion of lock-in in evolutionary economic geography perspective and concept of market imperative in global production network 2.0 theory, this study explores the role of market im...

World cites are critical nodes in global production networks (GPNs). Being ‘gateways’, they serve as hubs for transport and logistics, industrial processing, corporate control and service p...

Almost twenty years have passed since the global production network (GPN) framework was first proposed, seeking to understand the fragmented, transnational production of goods and services and its ...

This commentary extends the debate, proposed by Professor Robert Hassink and his colleagues, on how studies in the non-Anglo-American context can contribute to current debates in economic geography...

Recent models of Global Production Network Theory (known as GPN 2.0) have attempted to theoretically explain the underlying determinants, or causal drivers, of particular industry network configura...

The global value chain (GVC) perspective assumes that business firms’ occupation of high value-added nodes in the global production network can promote their countries’ socio-economic development. ...

Fold N. Value chain dynamics, settlement trajectories and regional development, Regional Studies. Global value chain (GVC) analysis has little to say about the interaction between regions and global chain dynamics. However, recent calls to address broader development issues have resulted in efforts to incorporate a spatial dimension in GVC analysis. Addressing this issue, the paper argues that GVC analysis needs to be combined with the examination of livelihoods at settlement level. Livelihood diversification – or lack thereof – indicates particular settlement trajectories that constitute regional development pathways. It is also suggested that the understanding of how regions are shaped by value chain dynamics will improve by adding elements from global production network (GPN) theory to the combined methodology, namely by an examination of territorial embeddedness and value (creation, enhancement, capture, distribution) at settlement level.

(2015). Quantifying the Value of Place-Based Exchange within A Global Production Network: The Case of High Point North Carolina's Furniture Market. Regions Magazine: Vol. 297, No. 1, pp. 16-18.

Much to Apple's chagrin, the ‘suicide express’ at the Foxconn manufacturing complex in China has been widely reported. While outsourcing the manufacture of technology components is neither ...

This paper focuses on the impact of a global production network on the local economy in which production is located, with a particular focus on labour. The network concerned involves knitwear production in Tiruppur, southern India. This has transformed the region surrounding Tiruppur as well as the town, as knitwear production has spread into the countryside. Many of those previously employed in agriculture have moved into knitwear manufacturing and associated activities. This paper uses data collected over a 30-year period in villages located 25–30 km north-west of Tiruppur to show how the local rural economy has changed as the knitwear sector has expanded. The knitwear industry has provided direct employment to a large number of people from less well-placed households, which now commute to work, and it has also pushed up wages in agriculture and other occupations, including those who are not directly related to the knitwear sector. Importantly, the impacts of the expansion of knitwear production have be...

Deriving insights from the global production network (GPN) framework, we examine the recent development of the liquid crystal display (LCD) industry in South Korea. Using the GPN framework, we focus on the role of the national state as an active inter-scalar mediator in the dynamic strategic coupling process between global leading firms and local actors in globalizing regional development. We argue that the role of the national state as an inter-scalar mediator was crucial in coordinating localized growth factors with globalizing external factors to create and develop the LCD industry. This was achievable because of the legacy of the developmental state and the top-down implementation of policy in South Korea. Using the idea of the inter-scalar mediator, we specify the role of the state as a container of laws and practices and as a constructor of regional innovation systems to globalize regional development in the context of a centripetal society. A multi-strategy approach, which included one mont...

This article seeks to argue that logistics services, and the independent logistics industry in particular, should be afforded much more attention within political economy approaches to the global economy. Widespread outsourcing processes and the increased sophistication of logistics provisions mean that the industry has arguably evolved beyond being a mere service input to occupying an integral and strategic role within many global industries. It is, therefore, intimately connected to debates about shifting governance regimes and upgrading dynamics within those industries. Conceptualising logistics from a global production network (GPN) perspective offers the potential for revealing both (1) the contribution of logistics providers to value and upgrading dynamics in client sectors and (2) the ways in which the logistics industry itself can be thought of as a multi-actor value-generation network with its own strategic and upgrading dynamics. The article distils the key contributions and limitations ...

Steen, M. & Underthun, A. 2011. Upgrading the ‘Petropolis’ of the North? Resource peripheries, global production networks and local access to the Snohvit natural gas complex. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography Vol. 65, 212–225. ISSN 0029-1951. The article explores and assesses local and regional firms’ access to a natural gas extraction and refining complex located at the northern frontier of the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Controversial in environmental terms, the complex has been largely legitimized by the promise of regional economic development in North Norway, where opportunities for a localized support industry would have to be interpreted as constitutive of such a promise. The article employs a Global Production Network theoretical approach, and the authors pay particular attention to the complex interaction and power struggle between local, national, and global firms and institutions.

This article attempts to advance the research on industrial districts and regional development through a study of the restructuring of the clothing industry in Wenzhou Municipality, a regional driv...

A U.S.-based geographer and specialist on China advances his research on industrial districts and regional development by presenting a 2008 study of shoe manufacturing in Wenzhou (a major center in the world's largest footwear producing and exporting country). More specifically, the author examines how the model of economic development pioneered in Wenzhou (the Wenzhou model) has been transformed in an effort to meet the challenges posed by the global economy. He argues that the scaling up of Wenzhou's footwear industry, through the expansion of sales networks and factories across China and abroad, indicates that other adaptable city regions can overcome similar obstacles. The author challenges both the New Regionalism literature focused on local institutions and assets, as well as perspectives that overemphasize the benefits of globalization and global production networks. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O100, O140, O180. 2 figures, 3 tables, 60 references.

Kelly P. F. From global production networks to global reproduction networks: households, migration, and regional development in Cavite, the Philippines, Regional Studies. This paper suggests an extension to global production network approaches that seek to understand the processes of regional development in Asia. In most cases, the network metaphor presents an unrealized potential to incorporate diverse actors and spaces in analysis. Using a case in the Philippines, this paper suggests that local households and communities – the spaces of reproduction – should be considered actors in regional industrial development as an essential complement to firms and governments. Furthermore, spaces of reproduction are also engaged in the formation of global networks through migration and remittances. Such migration is partly driven by the growth in industrial employment. Kelly P. F. Des reseaux de production mondiaux aux reseaux de reproduction mondiaux: les menages, la migration et l'amenagement du territoire a Cavi...

This article reviews the development of a global production system through a cross-case analysis of the establishment of Hyundai Motor Company's five major overseas production facilities. It concludes that establishtying a global production network can be a catalyst for organizational learning and the development of new competencies; in particular, that the complexities and uncertainties of operating in unfamiliar economic and cultural contexts provide a powerful impetus to increasing a firm's absorptive capacity. The article identifies the strategies that enabled the Hyundai Motor Company to learn from its initial failures in overseas production. It focuses on the localization of production, the internal transfer of experienced staff, the codification of previous experience and the use of aggressive goal-setting. The analysis suggests that organizational resilience, that is the ability to rebound from initial failure, is a further important aspect in the process of organizational learning Refereed/Peer-reviewed

FELSENSTEIN D. (1997) The making of a high technology node: foreign-owned companies in Israeli high technology, Reg. Studies 31, 367‐380. This paper conceptualizes the role of Israel's high technology sector as that of a node in a global production network. A node can be characterized by the intensity of the incoming and outgoing flow of information, investments and so on, that pass through it. Foreign investment is one indicator of the centrality of a node. Using case study and aggregate firm level evidence of US foreign investment in Israeli high technology, the paper tests the hypothesis that foreign involvement in the node economy is based on a rather different set of forces than those suggested by the foreign investment literature. The results seem to indicate the importance of node-type factors such as the centrality of small firms in R&D activity and labour force stability, rather than the standard determinants such as incentives, labour costs and infrastructure. The implications and policy issues ...