This paper examines the question of how a shift in the end point of a global value chain alters the prospects for industrial upgrading in a developing economy through an analysis of the mobile telecom sector in China. Over the last decade, China has become the world's largest market for mobile...

This paper addresses the main dynamics in the global agro-industrial value chains for tropical products. It examines new upgrading opportunities for smallholder production in Africa as a consequence of two dominant trends within global agricultural value chains. The first is caused by the...

This paper charts the evolution of the financial and economic crisis in the global economy and argues that the likely outcome will be sustained growth in the two very large Asian driver economies of China and India and stagnation in the historically dominant northern economies. Given the nature...

Football manufacturing is a billion dollar industry heavily dominated by major global brands. Over the past 15 years there have been significant changes in the geographies of production with China consolidating its position as the number one football producer taking market share from Pakistan,...

Green investments can greatly contribute to finance small innovative sustainable businesses, especially in less developed countries (LDCs) where capital is scarce. However, there is a lack of human resources capacity both in the firms and especially in the investor side. Even though there are...

In this paper, we apply global value chain (GVC) analysis to recent trends in the global automotive industry. We focus on how the recent economic crisis has accelerated pre-crisis trends towards greater importance of the industry in the developing world. The regional structure of production in...

This article analyses the offshore services industry using the global value chain approach. This industry has grown at a rapid pace over the last decade, driven principally by the search of businesses to reduce costs by unbundling and offshoring corporate services. This paper explores how...

This article uses the global value chain approach to analyse the upgrading trajectories of leading apparel exporters adapting to the end of textile and apparel quotas and the economic recession. These events have been coupled by the consolidation and reconfiguration of global supply chains....

In this paper, we apply global value chain (GVC) analysis to study recent trends in the global electronic hardware industry and their implications for upgrading opportunities for firms from developing countries. We identify three key firm level actors – lead firms, contract manufacturers, and...

This paper assesses the implications for upgrading of integration into two distinct clothing value chains in Lesotho and Swaziland – the value chain characterised by Taiwanese investment and feeding into the US market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the value chain...