Global production networks, trade and labour

The challenge

Global production networks (GPNs) account for more than 80% of global trade, involving a range of firm and non-firm actors engaged in the production of goods and services from raw materials to final consumption.

The emergence of global production networks, or global value chains, raises various challenges for sustainable production and consumption. Existing inequalities may be reinforced as transnational and public governance struggles to regulate and control flows that cross national borders. Farmers and firms must meet stringent barriers to entry within global production networks, and face difficulties in moving out of lower value-added activities to capture the gains.

Workers often face extremely difficult everyday conditions producing goods and services for major companies in global markets. Upgrading be it economic improvements or for workers or the environment is a key goal, but is often elusive and can involve trade-offs.

How we are addressing it

The organisation of global production is undergoing significant evolution, under the influence of rising powers and more polycentric trade patterns, new technologies such as digitisation, and the challenges of sustainable development.  Our research focuses on:

  • Shifting geographies of production: Rather than emphasizing North-South oriented production networks, contemporary polycentric trade involves overlapping, multiple production networks oriented towards different end markets –across both global North and South.
  • The 4th Industrial Revolution: The digitisation of production and the combinations of multiple technological advances will potentially transform global production networks, with a growing significance for technological platforms, more localized production, as well as new entry barriers.
  • Sustainability: While initial research on GPNs took a firm-centric and economic approach, more recently progress has been made in moving beyond such approaches to research on GPNs by incorporating labour and environmental concerns.

Research projects

Farmers in a field with a tractor

Shifting south

This research will look at decent work in regional value chains and South-South trade.
Woman stood in front of a seller's kiosk.

India's pharmaceuticals, local production and public health security in sub-Saharan Africa

This project involves a comparative study of India's pharmaceuticals and local production across a number of countries and regions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Huge construction site at industrial plant

Sustainability innovations in global value chains

How sustainability innovations can be developed and implemented within GVCs and associated GPNs to address socio-ecological challenges and facilitate better working conditions?

Our teaching agenda

People and publications

Click on the names below to read their latest publications or read the latest publications from the Global Development Institute.

This group works closely with colleagues from Geography and the Alliance Manchester Business School.

News and insights