Global Production Networks

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.

This volume ultimately aims to develop a theory of global production networks that explains economic development in the interconnected global economy. It provides robust answers to a fundamental question: how is development in different economies driven by their participation in value activities organised through global production networks? These answers can also offer new theoretical insights into why the organisation and coordination of global production networks varies significantly between different industries, sectors, and economies, and why those variations matter for economic development.

The phenomenon of globalization has increased in recent decades due to the opening of borders in Eastern Europe and the sudden emergence of other countries in the global trade economy. Yet, the process of becoming global to get access to growing markets or to achieve quality, service, and/or cost advantages from the reconfigured Value Chains is one of the most complex processes that companies undertake. Global Production Networks: Operations Design and Management addresses the challenges that companies face and proposes a range of innovative methodological approaches when designing and implementing global manufacturing and logistics networks. The book provides principles, tools, and techniques to help managers and practitioners tackle the design and management of global manufacturing and logistics networks. It presents guidelines based on the key activities and decisions of operations management for companies that have begun the internationalization process over the past few years, focusing on small and medium enterprises, and includes case studies that show best practices and recent trends. The author has worked closely with researchers and practitioners throughout the world to offer a methodological answer for the analysis and design of global networks with productive multilocation as well as the design of plants, warehouses, and supplier networks in new international contexts. The text also outlines the GlobOpe (Global Operations) framework and roadmap that outlines a logical path to identifying sources of competitiveness when designing and managing Global Production Networks. The process of internationalization in global markets has often been tackled from the business point of view, but rarely from the perspective of the production and logistics systems that support it. This book takes an in-depth look at the strategy of production and logistics operations, providing a roadmap for managers who need to analyze, assess, define, and deploy the operations strategy in their companies.

Bill Pritchard provides an important update on how current trade methodologies are implemented as China becomes one of the world’s largest fresh fruit importers from countries such as Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

This book takes issue with the likening of contemporary globalization to nineteenth century trade interdependence, in which the defining feature of contemporary globalization is the spread of global production networks, which were notably absent in the past. Maswood demonstrates that the emergence of global production networks (GPNs) was not a result of economic and trade liberalization, but instead due to neo-protectionist developments in the 1980s that acted as a catalyst to transform Japan’s nationally based production networks into the now ubiquitous GPNs. Through this case study of Japan, the author lays out a case for reconsidering the origins of globalization, and explores some of the consequences that are likely to flow from progressive evolutionary transition towards a global economy.

This volume examines the role of Chinese businesses and industries in Asian production networks. By presenting different case studies of the Asian region, the contributors illustrate how China successfully exports the Chinese business model, based on Chinese ethics, social networks and production integration. The contributors also discuss topics such as the implications and ramifications of global product sharing within Asia; the prospects of free trade agreements in Asia; the economic advantages of Chinese family lineage and Guanxi − an influential Chinese network; collaboration of overseas Chinese with mainland Chinese, as well as direct Chinese business involvement and investment in other Asian countries.

This timely book deploys new tools and measures to understand how global production networks change the nature of global economic interdependence, and how that in turn changes our understanding of which policies are appropriate in this new environment.

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.