Which governance structures drive economic, environmental, and social upgrading?

The concept of upgrading has been used extensively for the last twenty years, to capture the possibility for firms, regions, countries to learn, grow and move toward higher value-added activities thanks to being embedded into Global Value Chains. One of the key finding emerging from this literature is that the extent of such upgrading depends on the nature of relationships with the lead firms (governance). Whereas the literature to date has explored these issues via qualitative approaches, this paper explores the effect that different forms of governance with suppliers and customers have on economic (product, process, functional), environmental and social upgrading based on an analysis of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) data. The results show that participating to GVCs supports only some forms of upgrading and only under specific governance structures.

For more info: Golini, R., De Marchi, V., Boffelli, A., & Kalchschmidt, M. (2018). Which governance structures drive economic, environmental, and social upgrading? A quantitative analysis in the assembly industries. International Journal of Production Economics, 203, 13-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.05.021

Do Global Value Chains Offer Developing Countries Learning and Innovation Opportunities?

The role of developing countries in the global economy via embeddedness in Global Value Chains (GVCs) is increasing, but their ability to become innovation leaders is less certain. Together with Roberta Rabellotti and Elisa Giuliani we published an article in which we analysed the extant literature identifying three dominant types of innovators within the GVC – who display various levels of innovativeness and use different learning mechanisms and investigate the opportunities for local development in developing countries.

More info at: De Marchi V., Giuliani E., Rabellotti R. (2017) ‘Do Global Value Chains Offer Developing Countries Learning and Innovation Opportunities?’, The European Journal of Development Research. https://lnkd.in/dJU-inX

Here the link at the post on the LSE Global Investments & Local Development blog: https://goo.gl/1Je4tE

New book: local clusters in Global Value Chains

Drawing on detailed studies of different industries and countries, the book Local Clusters in Global Value Chains. Linking Actors and Territories Through Manufacturing and Innovation, co-edited with Eleonora Di Maria and Gary Gereffi for Routledge discusses how clusters are evolving differently in GVCs, given the international fragmentation of economic activities and the increasing competitive pressure to small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) agglomerated in economic clusters because of the consolidation of GVCs ruled by global lead firms.

The book explores the tension between place-based variables and global drivers of change, and the possibility for territories containing such clusters to prosper in the new global scenario considering for the role of key – local and global – actors active in the industrial districts and the innovation and manufacturing capabilities characterising it, being of potential interest for both scholars and policy makers.

Below the Table of content and attached the flyer of presentation of the book with the dedicated discount code! 😉

More info at: https://goo.gl/4o5VgC


LOCAL CLUSTERS IN GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS LINKING ACTORS AND TERRITORIES THROUGH MANUFACTURING AND INNOVATION

Edited by Valentina De Marchi, Eleonora Di Maria, Gary Gereffi in Routledge Studies in Global Competition (2018)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Industrial Districts, Clusters and Global Value Chains: Toward an Integrated Framework,  by Valentina De Marchi, Eleonora Di Maria, and Gary Gereffi

Part I –Co-evolution of clusters and GVC

Chapter 2. Italian Industrial Districts Today: Between Decline and Openness to Global Value Chains, by Elisa Giuliani and Roberta Rabellotti

Chapter 3. Evolutionary Trajectories of Industrial Districts in Global Value Chains, by Valentina De Marchi, Gary Gereffi and Roberto Grandinetti

Chapter 4. Clusters, Industrial Districts and the Impact of Their Growing Intersection with Global Value Chains, by Mario Davide Parrilli and Jiří Blažek

Part II –The role of lead firms in GVCs and clusters

Chapter 5. MNEs and clusters: the creation of place-anchored value chains, by Fiorenza Belussi, Annalisa Caloffi and Silvia Rita Sedita

Chapter 6. The Global Value Chain and the Role of MNEs in Local Production Systems, by Mariachiara Barzotto, Giancarlo Corò and Mario Volpe

Chapter 7. Knowledge, systemic contribution and brokerage in industrial clusters, by Francesc Xavier Molina-Morales, Luis Martínez-Cháfer and José A. Belso-Martínez

Chapter 8. Local liabilities between immigrant and native entrepreneurship in clusters and global value chains, by Simone Guercini

Part III –Value chain activities: rethinking the role of manufacturing and innovation

Chapter 9. Manufacturing where art thou? Value chain organization and cluster-firms strategies between local and global, by Marco Bettiol, Maria Chiarvesio, Eleonora Di Maria and Stefano Micelli

Chapter 10. Networks of clusters within GVC: the case of the European ceramic tile districts in Spain and Italy, by Jose Luis Hervas-Oliver and Mario Davide Parrilli

Chapter 11. The role of manufacturing within industrial districts: proposing and testing an innovative methodology, by Ruggero Golini and Albachiara Boffelli

Chapter 12. New frontiers for competitiveness and growth in clusters and chains research, byValentina De Marchi, Eleonora Di Maria and Gary Gereffi

Evolving clusters at the I Workshop d’economia Valenciana

On November 4th, 2016, I got the pleasure to present my research in progress on the evolutionary trajectories of Italian industrial districts in Global Value Chains during a Keynote at the I workshop d’economia Valencia (www.econval.org). You can find the presentation in slideshare by clicking here.

 

 

Workshop ‘Evolving industrial districts within Global Value Chains’

The 7th of April, in Padova we will discuss about how the global dimension is compatible with sub regional contexts for value creation at the Workshop ‘Evolving industrial districts within Global Value Chains’, which I co-organized together with Gary Gereffi (Duke U.).

Have a look at the agenda and the key themes discussed at the page: http://www.economia.unipd.it/evolving-ids-within-global-and-regional-vcs

Local innovation in developing countries via GVC participation

Have a look at the UNU MERIT Working Paper 2015-022, which I prepared with Elisa Giuliani and Roberta Rabellotti as background papers for the UNIDO, Industrial Development Report 2016: IDR 2016 WP 1.

By the mean of a literature review, we analyze local innovation capabilities in developing countries (firms and cluster) in relation to GVC participation, identifying three typologies depending on the engagement to GVCs: i) GVC-led Innovators, ii) Independent Innovators and weak Innovators.