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This book investigates how global value chain governance, public institutions and strategies in the area of industrial policy and industrial relations by stakeholders such as national or global trade unions, governments, companies or international NGOs shape upgrading in the Global South. A special feature is its interdisciplinarity, combining sociological, economic, legal and political dimensions. Case studies systematically compare different industry trajectories. Furthermore, it encompasses far-reaching insights into the role of global value chains for development, economic catching-up of countries and socio-political aspects such as working conditions and interest representation.
A key challenge in promoting decent work worldwide is how to improve the position of both firms and workers in value chains and global production networks driven by lead firms. This article develops a framework for analysing the linkages between the economic upgrading of firms and the social upgrading of workers. Drawing on studies which indicate that firm upgrading does not necessarily lead to improvements for workers, with a particular focus on the Moroccan garment industry, it outlines different trajectories and scenarios to provide a better understanding of the relationship between economic and social upgrading.
This book focuses on the changing gender patterns of work in a global retail environment associated with the rise of contemporary retail and global sourcing. This has affected the working lives of hundreds of millions of workers in high-, middle- and low-income countries. The growth of contemporary retail has been driven by the commercialised production of many goods previously produced unpaid by women within the home. Sourcing is now largely undertaken through global value chains in low- or middle-income economies, using a 'cheap' feminised labour force to produce low-price goods. As women have been drawn into the labour force, households are increasingly dependent on the purchase of food and consumer goods, blurring the boundaries between paid and unpaid work. This book examines how gendered patterns of work have changed and explores the extent to which global retail opens up new channels to leverage more gender-equitable gains in sourcing countries.
The conditions under which social upgrading, i.e., the process of improvements in the rights and entitlements of workers as social actors by enhancing the quality of their employment, takes place in global production networks [GPNs] have not been sufficiently explored. This research addresses the following research questions: how is social upgrading defined? Under which conditions does social upgrading occur? How does economic upgrading influence social upgrading? How does the local and global social and institutional context influence social upgrading opportunities? First, the thesis establishes a definition and categorisation of social upgrading. Then, it answers these questions by analysing the empirical case study of the garment industry in Morocco. The analysis of key informant interviews, semi-structured interviews with factory managers and focus group discussions with workers shows that participation in GPNs can deliver opportunities as well as challenges for developing country workers. The main argument and contribution of the thesis to the existing literature is that the attainment of social upgrading is hindered by the tension existing between commercial embeddedness and social embeddedness of GPNs. All actors in GPNs find themselves caught in between commercial dynamics and the subsequent need for competitiveness, and the need of considering workers as social agents with rights. In particular, supplier firms in developing countries have to respond to international buyers' pressures to lower costs, increase quality and productivity, as well as deliver products on short notice and with great flexibility. At the same time, they have to comply to labour standards set by national and international regulations and by private buyers' codes of conduct. These pressures are contradictory and create a critical dilemma for suppliers. Struggling to reconcile buyers' requirements and faced with this tension, they attempt to mitigate it by employing two types of workers: regular workers who guarantee high quality and continuity, and are the recipient of social upgrading; and irregular workers, who ensure low costs and a high degree of flexibility, and are largely excluded from social upgrading opportunities and are often socially downgraded. Therefore, participation in GPNs delivers a mix of social upgrading and downgrading depending on the type of worker under consideration.
The global economic system is experiencing a profound period of rapid change. The emergence of globalised production and distribution systems, which bring together diverse constellations of economic actors through a complex regime of global corporate governance, state regulation and new international divisions of labour, demands corresponding and innovative explanatory models. Global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks (GPNs) have been particularly useful as conceptual frameworks for understanding the global market engagement of firms, regions and nations. This book examines the rise of GVCs and GPNs as dominant features of the international political economy. It brings together leading thinkers in the field and sets out new directions for future scholarship in understanding the contemporary global economic system. In doing so, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the international political economy and the global economic system in the post-Washington Consensus era of contemporary capitalism. This book was published as a special issue of the Review of International Political Economy.
Studies conceptual foundations of GVC analysis, twin pillars of 'governance' and 'upgrading', and detailed cases of emerging economies.
Written by Neil M. Coe, this Advanced Introduction provides a comprehensive guide to the vibrant and expanding global production network (GPN) approach, through deftly exploring its antecedents, theoretical underpinnings, and debates and controversies in the field. The author argues overall that, during a time of profound on-going challenges within the global economic system, the need for a GPN framework has never been more pressing.
Accelerating processes of economic globalization have fundamentally reshaped the organization of the global economy towards much greater integration and functional interdependence through cross-border economic activity. In this interconnected world system, a new form of economic organization has emerged: Global Production Networks (GPNs). This brings together a wide array of economic actors, most notably capitalist firms, state institutions, labour unions, consumers and non-government organizations, in the transnational production of economic value. National and sub-national economic development in this highly interdependent global economy can no longer be conceived of, and understood within, the distinct territorial boundaries of individual countries and regions. Instead, global production networks are organizational platforms through which actors in these different national or regional economies compete and cooperate for a larger share of the creation, transformation, and capture of value through transnational economic activity. They are also vehicles for transferring the value captured between different places. This book ultimately aims to develop a theory of global production networks that explains economic development in the interconnected global economy. While primarily theoretical in nature, it is well grounded in cutting-edge empirical work in the parallel and highly impactful strands of social science literature on the changing organization of the global economy relating to global commodity chains (GCC), global value chains (GVC), and global production networks (GPN).