Regional development in the global economy: A dynamic perspective of strategic coupling in global production networks

Abstract

This paper rethinks the trajectories of regional development in an era of economic globalization. It argues for a more dynamic perspective on regional development that must incorporate both endogenous regional assets and strategic imperatives in global industries. Premised on theoretical advances in research into global production networks (GPNs) and global value chains (GVCs), a dynamic perspective of strategic coupling is further developed and reconstructed in this paper to demonstrate how regional development can result from the interaction effects of these regional assets and GPN logics. This perspective also points to different modes of strategic coupling for understanding the changing pathways of regional development. Several key issues for regional policy and practice are outlined to substantiate this call for a shift towards a dynamic and multi‐scalar view of regional development in today's global economy.

Towards a new wave in internationalization of innovation? The rise of China's innovative MNEs, strategic coupling, and global economic organization

“…Our analysis indicates that the rise of some of Chinese MNEs have reached such a stage that many of them have upgraded their positions in GVCs/GPNs, which echoes the findings of recent studies (for example, Horner, ; Lema et al, ; Yeung, ) that have argued for the emergence of EMNEs as global lead firms.…”

“…We have also contributed to the debate on rising power firms (Sinkovics et al, ; Yamin & Sinkovics, ) by our detailed examination of the potential impact of Chinese innovative firms' emergence on GVCs/GPNs and therefore on global economic organization. Moreover, the application of the strategic coupling perspective at the microlevel firm‐strategies supplements the extant studies in economic geography which tend to focus on the industry (e.g., Horner, ) or regional level (e.g., Yeung, ).…”

“…Our analysis has indicated that their rise has featured a series of strategic coupling, decoupling, and recoupling processes. In addition, associated with their rise is the upgrading of their positions in GVCs/GPNs, which represents a significant change in global economic Cross-country R&D investment Between Triad countries (Reddy, 1997) Still dominated by between-Triad investment, but also distinctive investment from developed countries to leading developing countries (Bruche, 2009;UNCTAD, 2005b) Surging investment from leading developing/emerging countries to developed countries (Buckley et al, 2007;Di Minin et al, 2012) Nature of overseas innovation activities Initially home-base exploiting but later to include home-base augmenting (Kuemmerle, 1999;Pearce, 1990) Predominantly adaptive R&D in developing countries, but more recently also global R&D centres (Krishna et al, 2012;Lundin and Schwaag Serger, 2007;OECD, 2006) EMNEs' investment in developed countries featured predominantly with home-base augmenting activities (Luo and Tung, 2007;Mathews 2006) Control of GVCs DMNEs dominated DMNEs dominated, subordinate role for EMNEs (Yeung, 2009;Schmitz and Strambach, 2009) Distributed control: EMNEs start to take the coordination role, but DMNEs continue to control strategic innovation (Awate et al, 2012;Lema et al, 2013;Altenburg et al, 2008) Strategic coupling and recoupling Between Triad countries Strategic coupling opportunities for firms and regions in emerging economies (Yeung, 2009(Yeung, , 2014Horner, 2013) Recoupling opportunities created by EMNEs for firms and regions in both emerging economies and developed economies (He and Khan, 2015;Knoerich, 2010;Pietrobelli et al, 2011). organization. Although our focus has been on Chinese firms, readers may find resonance for our findings and arguments in the case of non-Chinese EMNEs.…”

Local institutional actors and globally linked territorial development in Bekasi District: A strategic coupling?

“…GPNs, strategic coupling, and local institutional actors In principle, the GPN framework aims to help understand how relevant actors and institutions across multiple scales are articulated within production systems. It has been applied to explore a wide range of sectors across the manufacturing (Yeung, 2015), services (Kleibert, 2014), and natural resources industries (MacKinnon, 2013). In geographical terms, 'all Global Production Networks run through cities, and all cities are integrated into Global Production Networks' (Coe et al, 2010: 172).…”

“…Labour provision and capacity building Low-cost (unskilled/skilled) labour is one of the most critical assets commonly offered by developing countries to attract global production offshoring (Dossani & Kenney, 2007;Yeung, 2015). This labour tends to be less skilled compared to that required by knowledge-and technology-intensive industries (Goswami et al, 2012;Kleibert, 2015a).…”