Length3,000 wordsDetails The world of international bu

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The world of international business is complex and contested. It
is also changing rapidly. These changes apply to international
business as a whole, the frameworks and structures of
businesses themselves, and the way we understand them.
The task of this assignment is to select one of the four
international business
theories
that we have looked at in weeks 6 and 7 of this course – global
value chains, global production networks, the global factory, or
the platform economy – and apply it to a specific
industry
of your choosing. Once you have chosen your theory and
industry, the essay should be written in response to the
following question:
“Does the [your selected theory] theory accurately reflect the
current nature of the [your selected industry] industry?”
Some examples:
Does the global factory theory accurately reflect the current
nature of the clothing industry?
Does the global value chain theory accurately reflect the current
nature of the consumer electronics industry?
Does the platform economy theory accurately reflect the current

nature of the transport industry?
Does the global production network theory accurately reflect
the current nature of the food industry?
This full question should be written at the opening of your
essay.
Further Guidance
In order to successfully complete this assignment, your final
essay should include the following (note that this is NOT a
suggested essay structure):
A firm understanding of your chosen
theory
, including:
Its scholarly origins
The problems that it tries to address.
How it differs from theories that came before it
Its contemporary critics and alternatives
A firm understanding of your chosen
industry
, including:

Key firms
Industry structure
Ownership and financing
The influence of government or civil society institutions in firm
behaviour
Changes to the above over time, and the reasons for these
changes.
A thorough
application
of theory to industry, including:
The strengths of the theory in understanding the current nature
of the industry
The limitations of the theory in understanding the current nature
of the industry
A consistent
argument
in response to the question: does this theory accurately reflect
the current nature of your chosen industry?
See also the rubric below for guidance on what we are looking
for.

Structure
You are free to use whatever essay structure you feel best
conveys this analysis (some structures may be better suited to
some theory/industry combinations). However the following
suggested structure is recommended:
Introduction
Overview of your theory
History of your industry
Application of theory to industry
Critiques/limitations of this theory’s application to your
industry
Conclusion
Other tips for this assignment
Take the time to read extensively on your theory – do not base
your understanding on a single text or our summary below.
The essay should blend historical analysis with critical
theoretical analysis – avoid simply describing things without
relating them back to theory.
Exercise critical thinking – take a stance on the essay question
tell us what you think about the theory in question, not just
what others think.

Make sure that you focus on an industry, not an individual firm.
Theories
The following is a primer of the four theories available to you
to aide your selection. For further information see the lectures
for weeks 5 and 6 and the reading list for each theory below.
Global Factory/Factory-less Production
As the number and scale of multinational enterprises (MNEs)
grew in the 1980s and 1990s, there was increasing recognition
that international businesses were no longer an exception, but
now becoming the standard. One institutional form that theorists
of international business examined is the “global factory”. The
global factory can be viewed as an organisational network,
where the firm deals with intangible public goods, such as
knowledge (Buckley. 2014). The boundaries of the firm are said
to be porous and attention is placed on strategic decisions about
arrangements within and between firms. A version of the global
factory is the factory-less factory, especially evident in
electrical machinery and equipment, machine and mechanical
appliances and computers, pharmaceuticals, and apparel.
Global Value Chains (GVC)
As the growth of international production and exchange
extended further, we started seeing the unbundling of the MNC
as a single coherent and discrete entity with clear boundaries.
The global value chain (GVC) literature developed a concept of

value chains that was first floated by Michael Porter in his
competitive advantage work.
The GVC approach was developed around a question about
whether an unequal relationship existed between where value
was being created and where it was captured. In value chains
there may be places where exchange is unequal where, for
instance, a grower of coffee may get less than the value created
when selling to a merchant, or paying debts from a finance
company.
Given that GVC began with a special focus on industries in
developing countries, it is perhaps no surprise that the approach
is associated with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at
Sussex University, and has been picked up by international
policy institutions like the International Labour Organisation.
GVC decentres the analysis of IB on companies and what
companies do themselves. GVC is instead interested in relations
of power and control up and down industries. These relations
are recast not in terms of ownership but in terms of governance,
and there are several forms of governance developed here.
GVC also offers policy action and especially through notions of
economic and social upgrading.
Global Production Networks (GPN)
The other main network/chain approach is global production
networks, developed by economic geographers, notably out of
the University of Manchester. Just like the GVC approach the
conceptual focus of GPN is on the spatial and institutional
relationships between production, exchange, distribution and

consumption. It recognises that the way global production is
being organised and reorganised is extending across all sorts of
countries, producing lots of small components and organised in
complex ways.
It is also based on an explicit recognition of the fluidity and
changeability of those relationships. As Coe, Dicken and Hess
note:
“Production networks are inherently dynamic; they are always,
by definition, in a process of flux—in the process
of becoming—both organizationally and geographically.
The spatio-temporality of production networks, therefore, is
highly variable and contingent. As Hudson (2004, p. 462) points
out, ‘[…] economic processes must be conceptualized in terms
of a complex circuitry with a multiplicity of linkages and
feedback loops rather than just “simple” circuits or, even worse,
linear flows’. Some networks are long-lived, others are more
ephemeral; some are geographically extensive, others are more
geographically localized. None remain completely unchanged
for very long.” (‘GPN – realising the potential’,
Journal of Economic Geography
, p 271, 2008)
The claim for GPN then is that like GVC it recognises the
increasing fluidity and extended nature of global production. It
also claims it is more expansive and comprehensi ve than GVC,
because it opens up non-linear, multi-level relations and
transactions.
The Platform Economy
The final and most recent approach to IB is the Platform
Economy concept. It is probably too early to identify a

theoretical discourse built around the concept (it’s still a
concept in search of a theory). That’s not to say that there is not
theoretical development occurring, and in the second instalment
of the lectures on international production we noted work in
sociology and social theory – Castells, Beck, Hardt and Negri
and others.
But within IB, there is recognition that platforms represent a
frontier form of business, and that this form is disrupting earlier
forms. For instance, a recent Harvard Business Review article
has framed the increasing presence of platforms as a frontier
business model this way:
“Products produce a single revenue stream, while platforms—
which we define as intermediaries that connect two or more
distinct groups of users and enable their direct interaction—can
generate many. Indeed, a large number of the world’s most
valuable companies by market capitalization in 2015 were
platform companies, including five of the top 10 (Apple,
Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook). Although some of
those companies started with platforms, many started with
products: Amazon launched as a retailer in 1994 and six years
later introduced Amazon Marketplace; Google began with a
search engine in the mid-1990s and then introduced search
advertising in 2000; and Apple created the iPod in 2001 but
didn’t move toward a platform until it developed the iTunes
Store in 2003 and the App Store in 2008.” Zhu and Furr
‘Products to Platforms: Making the Leap’
HBR
2016)
So, we have many of the leading global firms, especially those
that produce intangible products or services either based on or
transitioning to more platform type business models. The
question here is whether this is generalizable to lots of other
businesses or specific to a few spectacularly successful firms?

But as an expression of intangible capital and the frontiers of IB
this is an exciting and important development; one worth
thinking about and taking seriously.
Reading lists
Global Factory/Factory-less Production
Essential
Bernard, A. and Fort, T. (2015) ‘Factoryless Goods Producing
Firm’,
American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings
105 (5): 518-523.
http://faculty.tuck.dartmouth.edu/images/uploads/faculty/andre
w-bernard/aerpp-fgpfs.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Buckley, P. (2014) ‘International Integration and Coordination
in the Global Factory’. In P. Buckley
The Multinational Enterprise and the Emergence of the Global
Factory
, Palgrave Macmillan
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057/9781137402387_1
.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Buckley, P. (2009) ‘The impact of the global factory on
economic development’
Journal of World Business
, 44 (2): 131 – 143.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951608
000424 (Links to an external site.)
Liang, G. (2016) ‘The “Fox-Apple” partnership in the global

value chain: how did foreign direct investment and contract
manufacturing reshape the landscape of the electronics
industry?’. In Y. Xing (Ed.), Uncovering value added in trade:
New approaches to analyzing global value chains (World
Scientific Publishing, Singapore): 141-166
Zuboff, S. (2015). ‘Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the
Prospects of an Information Civilization’,
Journal of Information Technology
30 (1): 75–89.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/jit.2015.5 (Links to an
external site.)
Other
De Marchi, V,, Di Maria, E. and Gereffi, G. (Eds) (2017)
Local Clusters in Global Value Chains : Linking Actors and
Territories Through Manufacturing and Innovation
. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/r mit/detail.action?docID=4
Eriksson, T, Nummela, N. and Saarenketo, S. (2014) Dynamic
capability in a small global factory’,
International Business Review,
23: 169 – 180.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593113
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. (1992) 'The problem of
globalisation: international economic relations, national
economic management and the formation of trading blocs',
Economy and
Society, 21 (4): 357 - 96.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03085149200000
017

Sturgeon, T. (2000) ‘
How Do We Define Value Chains and Production Networks
?’
(Links to an external site.)
UNCTAD (2017)
World Investment Report 2017
, United Nations Publications ISBN 978-92-1-112911-3
United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations (1988)
Transnational Corporations in World Development: Trends and
Prospects
, New York: United Nations.
Zuboff, S. (2019)
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human
Future at the New Frontier of Power
, Profile Books.
Global Value Chains (GVC) and Global Production Networks
(GPN)
Essential
Dicken, P. (2003), ‘”Placing” firms: grounding the debate on
the “global” corporation’, in J. Peck and H. Wai-chung Yeung
(eds.),
Remaking the Global Economy: Economic-Geographical
Perspectives
, London: Sage, pp. 27 - 44.
Kaplinsky, R. (2004) ‘

?’
Sturgeon, T. (2008) ‘From Commodity Chains to Value Chains:
Interdisciplinary Theory Building in an Age of Globalization’,
Industry Studies Association,
http://isapapers.pitt.edu/84/1/2008-02_Sturgeon.pdf (Links to
an external site.)
Other
Amin, A. (2004) 'Regions Unbound: Towards a New Politics of
Place',
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography
, 86 (1): 33-44.
Barrientos, S. and Perron, D. (1999) Gender and the Global
Food Chain: a Comparative Study of Chile and the UK’. In
Afshar, H. and Barrientos, S. (eds) Women
, Globalization and Fragmentation in the Developing World,
pp. 150-173
De Backer, K and Miroudot, S. (May 2014)
Mapping Global Value Chains
European Central Bank, Working Paper Series No. 1677
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436411 (L
inks to an external site.)
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=4

.
(eds.),
Perspectives
Dicken, P. (1992)
Global Shift: The Internationalization of Economic Activity
, London: Paul Chapman
Fairbrother, P., Denham, T., West, M., Douglas, N., Salim, F.
and Teng, S-W. (2018) ‘Gippsland food value chain: Data-
driven regional development ‘, Centre for People, Organisation
and Work,
https://cpow.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Food-Agility-
Gippsland-Project-Final-Report-20181205-1.pdf (Links to an
external site.)
Gereffi, G. and Fernandez-Stark, K. (2011)
Global Value Chain Analysis
Centre on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karina_Fernandez-
Stark/publication/265892395_Global_Value_Chain_Analysis_A
_Primer/links/54218b000cf274a67fea984b.pdf (Links to an
external site.)
Gereffi , G., Humphrey, J. & Sturgeon, T. (2005) The
governance of global value chains,
Review of International Political Economy
, 12 (1): 78-104, DOI: 10.1080/09692290500049805
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09692290500 049

Economy and
Society, 21 (4): 357 - 96.
Kaplinsky, R. and Farooki, M. (2010). "What are the
Implications for Global Value Chains When the Market Shifts
from the North to the South?". World bank.
http://oro.open.ac.uk/22406/1/Kaplinsky%2C_Farooki_World_B
ank_WPS5205.pdf (Links to an external site.)
UNCTAD (2017)
Prospects
Zuboff, S. (2019)
, Profile Books
Global Production Networks (GPN)
Essential
Coe, N., Dicken, P. and Hess, M. (2008) ‘Global production
networks: realizing the potential’,

Journal of Economic Geography
, 8 (3): 271– 295 295,
https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbn002 (Links to an external site.)
Coe, N., Lai, K. and Wójcik, D. (2014) Integrating Finance into
Global Production Networks,
Regional Studies
, 48:5, 761-777, DOI:
10.1080/00343404.2014.886772 (Links to an external site.)
Neilson, J., Pritchard, B. & Wai-chung Yeung, H.
(2014) ‘Global value chains and global production networks in
the changing international political economy: An introduction’,
, 21 (1): 1-8, DOI:
10.1080/09692290.2013.873369 (Links to an external site.)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2013.8
?’
Other
Amin, A. (2004) 'Regions Unbound: Towards a New Politics of
Place',
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography
, 86 (1): 33-44.
Barrientos, S. and Perron, D. (1999) Gender and the Global
Food Chain: a Comparative Study of Chile and the UK’. In
Afshar, H. and Barrientos, S. (eds) Women
, Globalization and Fragmentation in the Developing World,

pp. 150-173
De Backer, K and Miroudot, S. (May 2014)
Mapping Global Value Chains
European Central Bank, Working Paper Series No. 1677
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436411 (L
inks to an external site.)
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=4
.
(eds.),
Perspectives
Dicken, P. (1992)
Global Shift: The Internationalization of Economic Activity
, London: Paul Chapman
Fairbrother, P., Denham, T., West, M., Douglas, N., Salim, F.
and Teng, S-W. (2018) ‘Gippsland food value chain: Data-
driven regional development ‘, Centre for People, Organisation
and Work,
https://cpow.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Food-Agility-
Gippsland-Project-Final-Report-20181205-1.pdf (Links to an
external site.)
Henderson, J., Dicken, P., Hess, M., Coe, N. & Wai-Chung

Yeung, H. (2002) ‘Global production networks and the analysis
of economic development’,
, 9 (3): 436-464, DOI: 10.1080/09692290210150842
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09692290210150
842?needAccess=true (Links to an external site.)
Economy and
Society, 21 (4): 357 - 96.
UNCTAD (2017)
Prospects
Zuboff, S. (2019)
, Profile Books
Platform Economy
Essential
Kenney, M. and Zysman (2016) ‘The Rise of the Platfomr
Economy’,
Issues in Science and Technology

, pp. 61 - 69
https://www.nbp.pl/badania/seminaria/25x2016_2.pdf (Links to
an external site.)
Schmidt, F. A. (2017). Digital labour markets in the platform
economy.
Mapping the Political Challenges of Crowd Work and Gig Work
,
7
, 2016. https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/wiso/13164.pdf
Van Doorn, N. (2017). Platform labor: on the gendered and
racialized exploitation of low-income service work in the ‘on-
demand’economy.
Information, Communication & Society
, 20(6): 898-914.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1
294194?scroll=top&needAccess=true& (Links to an external
site.)
Zuboff, S. (2015). ‘Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the
Prospects of an Information Civilization’,
Journal of Information Technology
30 (1): 75–89.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/jit.2015.5 (Links to an
external site.)
Other
Drahokoupil, Jan and Fabo, Brian, The Platform Economy and
the Disruption of the Employment Relationship (July 14, 2016).
ETUI Research Paper - Policy Brief 5/2016. Available at
SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2809517 (Links to an external site.)
or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2809517 (Links to an external

site.)
Langley, P. and Leyshon, A. (2017) 'Platform capitalism : the
intermediation and capitalisation of digital economic
circulation.', Finance and society., 3 (1). pp. 11-31.
Castells, M. (1996)
The Information Age: Economy, society and culture, Vol. 1 The
rise of the Network Society
. Oxford, Blackwell, especially prologue and chapter 5.
Castells, Manuel. (2005).TheNetworkSociety: From Knowledge
to Policy. In
The Network Society From Knowledge to Policy
, edited by Manuel Castells and Gustavo Cardoso, pp.3- 3.
Washington, DC: John Hopkins Center for Transatlantic
Relations.
Giddens, A. (2002)
Runaway World
, Profile Books.
Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2000)
Empire
, Cambridge Mass. Harvard University Press, especially
chapters 1.2, 3.4 and 4.3.
Harvey, D. (2003)
The new imperialism
, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stiglitz, J (2002)
Globalisation and its Discontents
, London: Allen Lane.

Economy and
Society, 21 (4): 357 - 96.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-
zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook (Links
to an external site.)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-
surveillance-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff-review (Links to an
external site.)
https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/3FMTvCNPJ4SkhW9tgpWP
/full (Links to an external site.)
https://
www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/12/the-rise-of-intangible-
income-a-global-value-chain-perspective/
https://
www.dissentmagazine.org/article/wages-for-facebook (Links to
an external site.)
Kaplan, R.A. , and Nadler, M.L. (2015). Airbnb: A Case Study
in Occupancy Regulation and Taxation, The University of
Chicago Law Review, 82: 103.
Langley, P. and Leyshon, A. (2017) 'Platform capitalism : the
intermediation and capitalisation of digital economic
circulation.', Finance and society., 3 (1). pp. 11-31.
http://dro.dur.ac.uk/19828/2/19828.pdf (Links to an external
site.)
Srnicek, N (2017)

Platform Capitalism
Cambridge: Polity Press
https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2HdNDwAA
QBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=emerging+platform+economy&ots
=nrJFKxNi2n&sig=qnWuYsftHAA-nY2iawid-
Qnx1sU&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=emerging%20platform%20
economy&f=false (Links to an external site.)
UNCTAD (2017)
Prospects
Vandaele, Kurt, Will Trade Unions Survive in the Platform
Economy? Emerging Patterns of Platform Workers’ Collective
Voice and Representation in Europe (June 19, 2018). ETUI
Research Paper - Working Paper 2018.05. Available at SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3198546 (Links to an external site.)
or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3198546 (Links to an external
site.)
Zuboff, S. (2019)
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
, London: Profile Books.

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