Towards a typology of repositioning strategies of GVC/GPN suppliers: the case of functional upgrading and downgrading

By Jirí Blazek. 2016

128 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article examines various upgrading and downgrading repositioning firm strategies within global value chains (GVCs) or global production networks (GPNs). It builds upon recent evidence that the mode of governance could vary profoundly among firms engaged in the same GVC/GPN. Therefore, the relevance of particular types of upgrading that were originally derived from the ideal types of GVC/GPN governance will be reconsidered. It is argued that the existing dissonance in the literature over possibilities for functional upgrading can be attributed to the different modes of governance that can exist within a particular GVC/GPN and to the diverse nature of functional upgrading. Consequently, a typology of functional upgrading is outlined, and it is argued that these different types vary significantly according to their probability and potential risk-benefit ratios. The article also introduces passive, adaptive and strategic downgrading and outlines their potential negative and positive effects on firms.

Subfields: Business and International Management, Economics and Econometrics, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/baa15512701b242992fdc0886809604ba70d49a9

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Citations in the corpus

Global Value Chain Configuration: A Review and Research Agenda (2017, background): “Another topic that is interesting and remains underxplored is the case of downgrading, which means that firms ay voluntarily or involuntarily move toward the producion of simpler goods or focus on lower or smaller segments Barrientos et al., 2011; Blazek, 2015).”
Complementary interregional linkages and Smart Specialisation: an empirical study on European regions (2020, background): “This has resulted in a division of labour in which regions may be locked-in in certain activities at the global scale (Blažek, 2016).”