Showing papers by "Stefano Ponte published in 2018"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the impacts that a widespread adoption of 3D printing could have on restructuring, upgrading and distributing value added along manufacturing global value chains (GVC) with brief examples from the aerospace and automotive industries.
Abstract: 3D printing (3DP) has been heralded as a revolutionary technology that can alter the way production is organized across time and space – with important redistributive effects on geography and size of production activities. In this article, we examine the impacts that a widespread adoption of 3DP could have on restructuring, upgrading and distributing value added along manufacturing global value chains (GVC) – with brief examples from the aerospace and automotive industries. We highlight two possible scenarios for GVCs – a complementarity scenario of 3DP and traditional manufacturing overlapping, which would reproduce power relations in GVCs and the current distribution of value added in a ‘smiling curve’; and a substitution scenario of 3DP partly or fully superseding traditional manufacturing, which would have more transformational effects in terms of ‘rebundling’ activities, regionalizing or localizing GVCs, and flattening the smiling curve into a ‘smirk’.
97 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine results, limitations and future potential of voluntary initiatives that have been carried out by selected European and North American port authorities, which are considered frontrunners in environmental management.
89 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that orchestrators are more likely to succeed when they employ two strategies: (i) they use a combination of directive and facilitative instruments, including the provision of feasible incentives for industry actors to change their behavior, backed up by regulation or a credible regulatory threat; and (ii) they are robustly embedded in, and involved in the formation of, the relevant transnational networks of actors and institutions that provide the infrastructure of governance.
Abstract: This article contributes to current debates on the potential and limitations of transnational environmental governance, addressing in particular the issue of how private and public regulation compete and/or reinforce each other – and with what results. One of the most influential approaches to emerge in recent years has been that of “orchestration.” But while recent discussions have focused on a narrow interpretation of orchestration as intermediation, we argue that there is analytical traction in studying orchestration as a combination of directive and facilitative tools. We also argue that a social network analytical perspective on orchestration can improve our understanding of how governments and international organizations can shape transnational environmental governance. Through a case study of aviation, we provide two contributions to these debates: first, we propose four analytical factors that facilitate the possible emergence of orchestration (issue visibility, interest alignment, issue scope, and regulatory fragmentation and uncertainty); and second, we argue that orchestrators are more likely to succeed when they employ two strategies: (i) they use a combination of directive and facilitative instruments, including the provision of feasible incentives for industry actors to change their behavior, backed up by regulation or a credible regulatory threat; and (ii) they are robustly embedded in, and involved in the formation of, the relevant transnational networks of actors and institutions that provide the infrastructure of governance.
30 citations
14 Nov 2018
TL;DR: The French school of convention theory has influenced various branches of agro-food studies in the past two decades, as part of a wider trend in the Anglophone social sciences.
Abstract: The French school of convention theory has influenced various branches of agro-food studies in the past two decades, as part of a wider trend in the Anglophone social sciences. It provided analytical and theoretical insight for examining alternative food networks, the 'quality turn' and various forms of coordination and governance in agro-food value chains. In this chapter, we examine how convention theory was introduced in Anglophone agro-food studies, and what results and patterns of diffusion have ensued. We discuss similarities and divergences that characterize the Anglophone literature in comparison to the French school, and highlight the new issues and approaches it introduced. We also reflect upon the extension of convention theory towards the related 'regimes of engagement' approach, which evolved from French pragmatic sociology. Finally, we highlight three further analytical, methodological and empirical developments that are needed to carry this research agenda forward.
5 citations