Stefano Ponte

Bio: Stefano Ponte is an academic researcher from Copenhagen Business School. The author has contributed to research in topics: Global value chain & Sustainability. The author has an hindex of 46, co-authored 134 publications receiving 9157 citations. Previous affiliations of Stefano Ponte include University of Copenhagen & Danish Institute for International Studies.

Quality standards, conventions and the governance of global value chains

Abstract: Convention theory helps refine our understanding of the governance of global value chains through its analysis of ‘quality’. In this article, it is argued that global value chains are becoming increasingly ‘buyer-driven’, even though they are characterized by ‘hands-off’ forms of co-ordination between ‘lead firms’ and their immediate suppliers. This is because lead firms have been able to embed complex quality information into widely accepted standards and codification and certification procedures. As suggested by convention theory, their success in doing so has depended on defining and managing value chain-specific quality attributes that are attuned to broader narratives about quality that circulate within society more generally.

Governing global value chains: an introduction

Abstract: This introductory paper to the special issue on governing global value chains (GVCs) focuses on the concept of governance as the dimension of GVCs that has received the most theoretical and empirical attention to date. After a brief introduction of the GVC concept in relation to the literature on economic globalization, we review the three main interpretations of GVC governance that have been advanced: governance as driving, governance as coordination and governance as normalization. After summaries of the four subsequent papers (by Bair, Gibbon and Ponte, Milberg, and Palpacuer), the authors offer reflections on the current state of development of GVC analysis. The unevenness and theoretical eclecticism of the GVC literature to date, particularly but not only with regard to the understanding of governance, poses the question of whether it is possible to reconcile the different approaches within a unified paradigm. If not, then GVC analysis is better understood as a methodological approach that c...

Global Commodity Chain Analysis and the French Filière Approach: Comparison and Critique

Abstract: This article reviews two approaches to the study of economic restructuring which focus on commodity-specific dynamics of change. The first is the global commodity chain (GCC) approach, which has been developed primarily for the analysis of industrial commodities.The second is the francophone filiere tradition, which has been applied mostly to agricultural commodities originating from former French colonies. The article finds that the GCC approach has a more coherent framework than the filiere approach, although it is still far from constituting a fully fledged 'theory'. The authors provide a number of suggestions for improving some of its key concepts. They also suggest that the GCC approach can be enriched by some of the insights gained in filiere work, especially in terms of improving historical coverage and depth, enlarging the analysis to agricultural commodities, better handling of regulation issues, and including quality convention issues in analysing commodity chain structure and restructuring.

Trading Down: Africa, Value Chains And The Global Economy

Abstract: 1. The Age of Global Capitalism 2. The New International Trade Regime 3. Global Value Chain Analysis 4. The Ride of Buyer-driven Value Chains in Africa 5. Entry Barriers, Marginalisation and Upgrading 6. Standards, Quality Conventions and the Governance of Global Value Chains 7. TradingDown?

A handbook for value chain research

Abstract: We are grateful to colleagues in both our individual institutions and in the Spreading the Gains from Globalisation Network (particularly those participating in the Bellagio Workshop in September 2000) for discussions around many of the issues covered in this Handbook and also to Lest anyone feel overwhelmed by the depth of detail in this Handbook, especially with respect to the sections on methodology, we would like to emphasise at the outset: this Handbook is not meant to be used or read as a comprehensive step by step process that has to be followed in order to undertake a value chain analysis. We know of no value chain analysis that has comprehensively covered all the aspects dealt with in the following pages, and certainly not in the methodologically sequential Handbook set out below. Indeed to try and do so in this form would be methodologically overwhelming, and would certainly bore any reader of such an analysis to tears. Our intention in producing a Handbook on researching value chains is to try and comprehensively cover as many aspects of value chain analysis as possible so as to allow researchers to dip in and utilise what is relevant and where it is appropriate. It is not an attempt to restrict researchers within a methodological strait-jacket, but rather to free them to use whatever tools are deemed suitable from the variety presented below. The text below attempts to cover the broad terrain of researching value chains, and hence spans the contextually relevant, the conceptually abstract, the methodologically particular, and the policy relevant. Part 3 on Methodology can therefore be read in a number of ways: as a form of expanding the conceptual issues raised in Part 1 on Basic Definitions and Part 2 on Analytic Constructs; or as an array of possible technical tools, some of which may be usefully adopted and methodologically applied either partially or fully depending on circumstances; or whole parts can be skipped and not read at all. Indeed, apart from using it as a research tool, it is not even our intention that everyone should read the Handbook in the way one would go through a (good) novel – sequentially, and from cover to cover. We therefore urge readers to use their common sense and treat it as one does an edited book, or researchers to read it in the same way one reads a mechanics manual for finding …

Global production networks and the analysis of economic development

Abstract: This article outlines a framework for the analysis of economic integration and its relation to the asymmetries of economic and social development. Consciously breaking with state-centric forms of social science, it argues for a research agenda that is more adequate to the exigencies and consequences of globalization than has traditionally been the case in 'development studies'. Drawing on earlier attempts to analyse the cross-border activities of firms, their spatial configurations and developmental consequences, the article moves beyond these by proposing the framework of the 'global production network' (GPN). It explores the conceptual elements involved in this framework in some detail and then turns to sketch a stylized example of a GPN. The article concludes with a brief indication of the benefits that could be delivered by research informed by GPN analysis.