Cloth Without a Weaver: Power, Emergence and Institutions Across Global Value Chains

Value distribution and markets for social justice in global value chains: Interdependence relationships and government policy

“…Explicitly or not, most GVC research has viewed power as the determinant of the economic gains and distributional outcomes of value chain participation (Dallas, 2014 ; Dallas et al, 2019 ; Davis et al, 2018 ). Research in this area has specified the analytical scope within which multiple power dimensions manifest and are exploited by different constituencies, whether in governance structure and GVC type (Gereffi et al, 2005 ; Grabs & Ponte, 2019 ) or else in relational dynamics among participants (Coe & Young, 2015 ; Henderson et al, 2002 ).…”

“…In this paper, I seek to address this gap. I build on research on power in GVCs (Dallas, 2014 ; Dallas, Ponte, & Sturgeon, 2019 ; Grabs & Ponte, 2019 ; Mahutga, 2014 ), and combine it with insights of interdependence theory (Coleman, 2011 ; Deutsch, 1949 , 1973 ; Johanson & Johanson, 2005 ), to develop a conceptualization of power that originates in interdependence relationships among GVC participants. I posit that interdependence relationships are a powerful mechanism for change because interdependencies are inherent in the very nature of value creation in GVCs (Gereffi, 2018 ), and their reciprocal nature is in tune with the combination of collaboration (in value creation) and competition (in value capture) that characterizes these production systems (Chatain & Zemsky, 2011 ; Lepak et al, 2007 ; Tjosvold & Wu, 2009 ).…”

Power in Global Value Chains

“…The two dimensions yield a typology that includes four modes of power (see Figure 1)bargaining, demonstrative, institutional and constitutive. GVC and related literatures differentiate (at least implicitly) different kinds of power by highlighting whether the transmission is more direct (Coe and Yeung, 2015;Gereffi, 1994;Gereffi et al, 2005) or more diffuse (Dallas, 2014;Gibbon and Ponte, 2005). While an explicit framing of the direct/diffuse distinction is still lacking in the GVC literature, it has been made in other typologies of power (e.g.…”

“…Thus, following Dallas (2014), we argue that GVC research would benefit from a widening of its conceptual and empirical lens on power to better understand collective and emergent outcomes which may derive from social action that is only weakly intentional or even nonintentional. Or, as Hayek describes it, social order derived 'by human action, but not by human design.'…”

‘Governed’ trade: global value chains, firms, and the heterogeneity of trade in an era of fragmented production

“…In terms of employment, foreign exchange, and aggregate growth, China certainly has benefited from its entry into fragments of borderless production systems. However, much of this has been enabled by FIEs, which remain dominant across 12 of this paper's 18 industries, including many light industries in which Chinese domestic firms ought to be competitive after more than 30 years of experience in international trade and in the technologically simplest light industries (Dallas, 2014a(Dallas, , 2014b. Furthermore, domestic firms are most commonly channelized into market-governed 31 DALLAS: 'GOVERNED' TRADE ties with buyers, which are the most volatile at the firm level, incentivize diversification over specialization, and have the lowest requirements for buyers to engage in supplier upgrading.…”