Supplier strategy in global value chains: shaping governance and profiting from upgrading
Open accessAbstract
Abstract The growth of emerging market firms with a global presence highlights the need to better understand how supplier strategy influences global value chains (GVCs). We respond to this need by applying corporate strategy and technology strategy to improve the predictive and prescriptive power of GVC theory. Under what circumstances can suppliers in GVCs shape governance and profit from upgrading? Using corporate strategy, we argue that supplier strategy concerning make-or-buy decisions and buyer diversification can effect a change in governance mode. Using technology strategy, we identify appropriability regimes and complementary assets as essential preconditions for suppliers to capture value from upgrading. Our central contribution is in developing an integrative theoretical framework for analyzing how suppliers alter governance over time, and how they capture the value they create by upgrading, resulting in shifts in value chain polarity. This framework has significant implications for economic development.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Considerable heterogeneity in control decisions exists among lead firms operating in the same geographic regions and industry sectors.
“However, considerable heterogeneity in control decisions exists among lead firms operating in the same geographic regions and industry sectors, which suggests that firm-level strategic considerations, and not only macro-level forces, are powerful drivers of control patterns in GVCs (Dallas, 2015;Sako & Zylberberg, 2019).”
From Global value chains: A review of the multi-disciplinary literature (2020) · cites this paper as Sako & Zylberberg, 2019
Firm-level strategic considerations, and not only macro-level forces, are powerful drivers of control patterns in GVCs.
“However, considerable heterogeneity in control decisions exists among lead firms operating in the same geographic regions and industry sectors, which suggests that firm-level strategic considerations, and not only macro-level forces, are powerful drivers of control patterns in GVCs (Dallas, 2015;Sako & Zylberberg, 2019).”
From Global value chains: A review of the multi-disciplinary literature (2020) · cites this paper as Sako & Zylberberg, 2019
Cites
Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage
Barney, J. (1991) · Journal of Management · doi:10.1177/014920639101700108 · Cited by 48,334 · see citing works
An institution-based view of international business strategy: A focus on emerging economies
Peng, M. W., Wang, D. Y. L., & Jiang, Y. (2008) · Journal of International Business Studies · doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400377 · Cited by 3,286 · see citing works
Global production networks and the analysis of economic development
Henderson, J., Dicken, P., Hess, M., Coe, N., & Yeung, H. W.-C. (2002) · Review of International Political Economy · doi:10.1080/09692290210150842 · Cited by 2,216 · see citing works
Bridging differing perspectives on technological platforms: Toward an integrative framework
Gawer, A. (2014) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/j.respol.2014.03.006 · Cited by 1,869 · cited 2× · see citing works
“However, no platform owner can take its architectural leverage for granted, as complementors may compete and challenge its position, as Microsoft did to Netscape, and Facebook to Google (Gawer, 2014; Thomas et al., 2014).”
BackgroundA dynamic capabilities-based entrepreneurial theory of the multinational enterprise
Teece, D. J. (2014) · Journal of International Business Studies · doi:10.1057/jibs.2013.54 · Cited by 1,300 · cited 2× · see citing works
“…by considerations of transaction costs (Williamson, 1985), contractual incompleteness (Gibbons, 2005), capabilities of the ordinary and dynamic sorts (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990; Teece, 2014b; Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997), and institutional distance (Pache & Santos, 2010; Xu & Shenkar, 2002).”
BackgroundUpgrading in Global Value Chains: Lessons from Latin American Clusters
Giuliani, E., Pietrobelli, C., & Rabellotti, R. (2005) · World Development · doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.01.002 · Cited by 1,073 · see citing works
Value chains, networks and clusters: reframing the global automotive industry
Sturgeon, T., Van Biesebroeck, J., & Gereffi, G. (2008) · Journal of Economic Geography · doi:10.1093/jeg/lbn007 · Cited by 885 · see citing works
Reverse innovation, emerging markets, and global strategy
Govindarajan, V., & Ramamurti, R. (2011) · Global Strategy Journal · doi:10.1002/gsj.23 · Cited by 694 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Global value chains: A review of the multi-disciplinary literature
Kano, L., Tsang, E. W. K., & Yeung, H. W.-C. (2020) · Journal of International Business Studies · doi:10.1057/s41267-020-00304-2 · Cited by 767 · see citing works
Dallas, M. P., Ponte, S., & Sturgeon, T. J. (2019) · Review of International Political Economy · doi:10.1080/09692290.2019.1608284 · Cited by 320 · see citing works
- Authors
- Sako, M., & Zylberberg, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Sako, Mari
- ORCID
- Sako, Mari
- Venue
- Socio-Economic Review
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2017-11-10
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 687-707
- ISSN
- 1475-1461 (ISSN-L)
- 1475-147X
- OpenAlex
- W2766167247
- Cited by
- 97
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 11.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- zenodo.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Socio-Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- London School of Economics and Political Science
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Global trade, sustainability, and social impact
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management Information Systems › Outsourcing and Supply Chain Management
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › International Business and FDI
- Keywords
- supplier strategy, global value chains, governance modes, make-or-buy decision, appropriability regime, complementary assets, emerging market firms, business strategy, technology strategy, economic development
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
