Neither core nor periphery: The search for competitive advantage in the automotive semi‐periphery

Mordue, Greig; Sweeney, Brendan

doi:10.1111/grow.12354

Cited by 28 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…Production facilities in Europe and North America have been increasingly located in peripheral regions -Central Mexico in North America and former Communist countries in Central Europe -a trend that accelerated in the 21st century (Brincks et al 2018), giving rise to what came to be known as the 'integrated periphery'. Cheap labor, geographic proximity to large markets, membership in regional trade agreements, and investment incentives (Pavlínek 2018, Mordue andSweeney 2020; and the references cited in these papers) explain the growth of an automotive industry in these countries and the simultaneous restructuring in both traditional core regions and old integrated peripheries in Western Europe and North America 6 .…”

Section: Integrated Peripheries: Mexico and The Central European Economies (Cee) Comparedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their firms attempted -with diverse success -to counter the saturation of their markets by upgrading to premium vehicles and exporting to the rapidly expanding markets of the emerging economies, while delocalizing the production of lower-value cars. If, as argued by Mordue and Sweeney (2020), for the integrated periphery the question is how to upgrade to the semi-periphery, for the members of the core the question is how to retain their core-like status and avoid relegation to the semiperiphery.…”

Section: Core and Semi-peripherymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The future of the automotive industry: dangerous challenges or new life for a saturated market?

Simonazzi

Sanginés

Russo³

2020

INET Working Paper Series

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The automotive industry is undergoing a radical transformation. New social, technological, environmental and geopolitical challenges are redefining the characteristics of a saturated market, opening new scenarios while offering opportunities for the entry of new players. These challenges are bound to trigger reorganization of the global value chain between old and new suppliers and car makers and their suppliers, affecting the distribution of employ-ment, the regionalization of production and the dynamic evolution of the comparative ad-vantage of nations. In this paper we address the issue of the reorganization of global value chains in the face of these challenges. The analysis will compare the relative position of core and peripheries in the North-American and European macro-regions, focusing on Mexico, which represents a significant case study for analysis of the impact of the digital transformation on the domestic value chain in an “integrated periphery”, and of trade agreements on the location policies of big multinationals. The dependency of the Mexican automotive industry on the strategic decisions of global players is considered a factor of great vulnerability, especially in a context of rapid change in the patterns of consumption, technologies and international trade agreements. For Mexico, as for European producers in the integrated and semi-peripheries, the main challenge in the near future will be posed by the radical transformation the industry is going through in electrical and autonomous-driving vehicles, which sees regions and players outside the traditional automotive clusters in the lead. The transformations taking place are bound to change the global structure of automotive production. The rise of new competitors from the emerging economies and would-be entrants from other sectors, competing in mastering the new digital and software technologies, threatens the established structure of the industry. The pandemic has led to a spectacular acceleration in the process of change, while heightening uncertainty about future developments. This is why the governments of leading countries are joining in the race, wielding carrots and sticks in support of their industries and in the endeavor to encourage risk-taking and investment in research and innovation, step up e-vehicle production while providing for the necessary infrastructures, and guarantee their companies a place in the new industry.

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Section: Integrated Peripheries: Mexico and The Central European Economies (Cee) Comparedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Core and Semi-peripherymentioning

confidence: 99%

The future of the automotive industry: dangerous challenges or new life for a saturated market?

Simonazzi

Sanginés

Russo³

2020

INET Working Paper Series

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“…Moreover, these cars were to be manufactured in Poland by domestic companies. Despite its unrealistic goals, even a partial success of this scenario is heavily dependent on what Mordue and Sweeney [7] have argued to be the main concern for the automotive industry in integrated peripheries (such as Poland, Czechia, or Mexico). These are ways to upgrade to more value-added activities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Newcomers from the Periphery: The International Expansion of Polish Automotive Companies

Micek¹,

Guzik²,

Gwosdz³

et al. 2021

Energies

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The rapid growth of Central European economies has been related to inward FDI, so these countries are often regarded as dependent market economies. What is interesting in this context is the international expansion of some domestic-owned manufacturing companies from Central Europe. Looking through the lens of global production networks (GPN) and evolutionary resilience perspectives, the paper aims to identify paths and mechanisms of development of new multinational companies, namely Polish automotive firms expanding from around 2010 onwards in the global markets through acquisitions and greenfield investments in Western Europe, North America, and Asia. The authors ponder on the underlying motives and barriers of this process, the capabilities, and features of Polish-owned companies. In order to do it, both qualitative (13 interviews with representatives of new multinationals and the other stakeholders preceded by content analysis of various documents, including company annual reports in particular) and quantitative (analysis of international trade, revenues, employment, locational data) insights are used for the period covering the time span between 1999 and 2020. As the result, the international expansion of domestic-owned firms is interpreted as a specific critical conjuncture of three mechanisms: (1) development of Central-Eastern European economies since the end of communism, (2) the evolution of the Western European core, and (3) the trajectory of individual Polish firms. We argue development trajectories of the firms going global cannot be understood without taking into account the dynamic interdependence between firm-specific capabilities (including the position within GPNs) and the changing characteristics of the countries (e.g., evolving regional assets).

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“…Taking Ontario (Canada) and the Austrian automotive triangle as empirical case studies, the article illustrates the different routes that traditional automotive regions are taking as they strive to cope with the advent of C/AV. Both Austria and Canada are part of thearguably under-studied -semi-periphery of the global automotive industry (Mordue and Sweeney, 2020;Pavl ınek, 2018). According to Pavl ınek (2018), such locations are characterized by high levels of foreign ownership and the lack of domestic OEMs, but have relatively high production costs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Pavl ınek (2018), such locations are characterized by high levels of foreign ownership and the lack of domestic OEMs, but have relatively high production costs. Due to the move of automobile production to lower labor cost nations, semi-peripheral automotive locations have recorded an absolute or relative (macroregional or global shares) decline of vehicle production since 2000 and are seeking to redefine their competitive advantage that neither stems from the power of core locations (such as the US or Germany) nor from cost advantages of the integrated periphery (like Mexico or Eastern European countries) (Mordue and Sweeney, 2020). Therefore, Ontario and the Austrian automotive triangle serve as interesting cases for examining how places reposition themselves in times of profound change in the context of global automotive production networks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automotive regions in transition: Preparing for connected and automated vehicles

Trippl

Baumgartinger-Seiringer

Goracinova

et al. 2021

Environ Plan A

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The advent of ‘connected and automated vehicles’ (C/AV) is posing substantial transformation challenges for traditional automotive regions across the world. This article seeks to examine both conceptually and empirically how automotive regions reconfigure their industrial and support structures to promote new path development in the C/AV field. Drawing on recent conceptual advances at the intersection of evolutionary economic geography and innovation system studies, we develop an analytical framework that casts light on how regional preconditions provide platforms for asset modification that underpin different routes of transformation. We distinguish between a reorientation route and an upgrading route. The framework is applied to a comparative analysis of industrial path development and system reconfiguration towards C/AV in two automotive regions, namely Ontario (Canada) and the Austrian automotive triangle.

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Neither core nor periphery: The search for competitive advantage in the automotive semi‐periphery

Cited by 28 publications

References 72 publications

The future of the automotive industry: dangerous challenges or new life for a saturated market?

The future of the automotive industry: dangerous challenges or new life for a saturated market?

Newcomers from the Periphery: The International Expansion of Polish Automotive Companies

Automotive regions in transition: Preparing for connected and automated vehicles

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