World Cities and Global Commodity Chains: an introduction

The purpose of this special anniversary issue is to assess the possible cross-fertilization between two prominent analytical frameworks: the World City Network framework, in which researchers have studied the emergence of a globalized urban system for the provision of a host of advanced corporate services; and the Global Commodity Chain framework, in which researchers have scrutinized the interconnected functions, operations and transactions through which specific commodities are produced, distributed and consumed in a globalized economy. These two approaches have developed in parallel but have rarely been brought together. This introductory essay identifies the common roots and recent history of these two frameworks, and outlines how the six articles contribute to their theoretical and empirical cross-fertilization.     

Making connections: Global Production Networks and World City Networks

This article offers a sympathetic critique of recent attempts to forge a dialogue between Global Commodity Chain (GCC) and World City Network (WCN) approaches to global economic change. While broadly supportive of the endeavour, we make three observations about this ongoing project. First, we question the utility of emphasizing the common roots of these approaches in World Systems Theory given that both have subsequently moved into new epistemological terrain and, additionally, that the language of core and periphery seems ever less pertinent to global economic realities. Second, we seek to highlight the potential dangers of essentializing the global system as one that is primarily shaped by certain kinds of connections – namely the intra-firm relationships of advanced producer service firms – between certain kinds of cities – namely the leading tiers of global cities. Third, we point to the need to expand the interpretations of relationality within global networks to include a wider variety of actors, particularly beyond the corporate realm, and to explore the dynamic power relations between those actors. We also discuss the methodological challenges of expanding the purview of research in this way. This commentary has been stimulated by the articles in the special issue of Global Networks on 'World City Networks and Global Commodity Chains'.     

World City Networks and Global Commodity Chains: towards a world-systems' integration

There are two literatures that explicitly describe the spaces of flows that constitute contemporary globalization – World City Network analysis and Global Commodity Chain analysis. We explore the possibilities of their integration by returning to their common origins in world-systems analysis. Each model is described and critiqued and it is argued that each can be used to address some of the other's limitations. This is illustrated through world city process additions to understanding the coffee commodity chain and commodity chain additions to understanding Mexico City and Santiago's positioning in the World City Network. This complementarity is just a first step towards a more complete integration; the conclusion describes the next steps towards just such a research agenda.     

Integrating world cities into production networks: the case of port cities

In this article we analyse the location patterns of firms that provide specialized advanced producer services (APS) to international commodity chains that move through seaports. Such activities can take place in world cities or in port cities. The analysis of APS location patterns in port cities provides a good opportunity to integrate the study of world cities into the framework of Global Production Networks. Based upon our empirical findings, we conclude that while port-related APS activities predominantly follow the world city hierarchy, a number of port cities stand out because they act as nodes in global commodity flows and as centres of advanced services related to shipping and port activities. Based on these empirical findings we address future avenues of research.     

The duality of world cities and firms: comparing networks,hierarchies, and inequalities in the global economy

Much of the research on globalization conceives of the global economy as structured by networks among places, while separately organizational research has examined the role of networks among firms in structuring competition, collaboration, and cooperation. In both cases, position and centrality within the network confers certain advantages and disadvantages, the distribution of which defines a hierarchy. In this article, I explore the idea of dual networks of world cities and firms, then use Breiger's approach to define two such networks: one among 313 world cities, another among 100 advanced producer service firms. Comparison of the degree of inequality in the hierarchies implied by these networks suggest that world city hierarchies are steeper than firm hierarchies (that is there is greater inequality among cities). Thus, even under conditions of footloose global capitalism, place still matters: where a producer is located has more impact than who provides support services.     

Global cities in Global Commodity Chains: exploring the role of Mexico City in the geography of global economic governance

In this article I assert that global cities are critical nodes in Global Commodity Chains because it is from them that producer services are provided. I explore forward linkages of producer service firms in Mexico City, showing that there are important service flows to companies responsible for the globalization of the 'Mexican' economy. Based on this finding I also indicate reasons why Mexico City is 'on the map' of global cities and of Global Commodity Chains. I argue that both access to local knowledge and close contact to clients are key factors. A third issue dealt with is the position of Mexico City in the geography of governance of commodity chains. The analysis suggests that it is useful to break up global city functions into the management of the world economy and into its command and control, because Mexico City is certainly a place for the former, while the scope of influence exercised from the city is rather limited.     

Rethinking the informal and criminal economy from a global commodity chain perspective: China–Paraguay–Brazil

The criminalization of Chinese counterfeit goods in the global market calls for a fresh approach to understanding well‐established binary distinctions such as legal/illegal, licit/illicit, and formal/informal. Based on a multi‐sited ethnography in China, Paraguay and Brazil, I examine five commodity chains of two products – toys and watches – and their regulatory frameworks in terms of merchandise status, business formality, and international transaction legality. Certain merchandise produced in the formal economy has no legal definition a priori, but legal variability starts when goods leave the factory. A great interchangeability of a product's legal status existed along its chain according to governance structures, legal cultures, geographical domains, and power relations. These findings suggest that the illicit is a relational category and the so‐called criminal economy is not a segmented market, but part of a global process integrated with formality and marked by great legal variability within and between nations.     

Cities, material flows and the geography of spatial interaction: urban places in the system of chains

The emerging discourses on world cities and Global Commodity Chains are valuable spatial frameworks for conceptualizing globalization and its spatial consequences. However, both discourses have one thing in common: they neglect the territorial and thus physical dimension of global flows. Hence, in this article I take the perspective of material flows to reconnect the discourses on cities and chains. I aim to clarify the role of urban places and their ability to attract, manage and redirect flows in such networks. I do so by re-examining classical concepts of spatial interaction and reorganization in human geography, with particular reference to centrality and intermediacy. The case of seaports and port cities is further explored to demonstrate the concrete conflicts and opportunities that arise with chain developments and insertion. To determine the relative position of places with regard to global chains and flows, Sheppard's concept of 'positionality' is discussed.     

Moving images: world cities,connections and projects in Sydney's TV production industry

World city research concerned with connectivity has tended to focus on advanced producer service firms and on selected North American and European cities; the prevailing methodology has been quantitative. In this article I answer the call to ‘go beyond counting’ by bringing together a project‐based enquiry — on a TV mini‐series Mary Bryant— with a more conventional assessment of network connectivity. The inclusion of a practice‐centred approach to this case study adds the performative data to the network, highlighting the actions and processes of those involved in maintaining the city networks. Furthermore, I demonstrate how this method of analysis is more suited to the study of project‐based cultural industries and highlight the role of Sydney in the global television industry — a city hitherto under‐explored in world city literature.     

‘Shades of grey’: the World Bank,knowledge networks and linked ecologies of academic engagement

The Global Development Network (GDN) and the Researchers Alliance for Development (RAD) are networks linking the professional ecology of the World Bank to the diverse research ecologies of universities and think‐tanks. These ‘knowledge networks’ can entangle research environments extensively with policy communities and the institutional interests of powerful organizations. Connecting different professional ecologies via networks creates complex sets of relationships between researchers and policy makers. The ‘grey areas’ of professional overlap highlight the ‘co‐production’ of (social) science in development policy. The author based her analysis of the dual dynamics of network autonomy and co‐option on participant observation of GDN and RAD as a past member of the governing bodies of both networks.     

Exploring the joint dynamics of intercity internet and corporate networks: a stochastic actor‐based modelling approach

In this article, I show one possible solution to synthesis dynamics in multiple intercity networks. I adopt a stochastic actor‐based modelling approach to explore the co‐evolution of an intercity corporate network of 57 globalized advanced producer service firms across 93 cities, and another intercity internet network between these 93 cities, for the period 2004–2010. Stochastic actor‐based models (SABMs) help to connect interactions among cities and firms on the local scale with empirically observed networks on the global scale. My analysis accounts for the co‐evolution/interdependence among multiple world city networks (WCNs) and associated network changes in individual WCNs with exogenous city‐related covariates and endogenous local network structures.     

Global value chains in international knowledge work: networks,stratifications and labour markets

In this article, I aim to cast light on the arguably indeterminate phenomenon of the global labour market (GLM) by placing the focus on an industry that has sometimes been perceived as epitomizing homogeneity and ‘world flatness’ in its deployment of geographically dispersed knowledge workers, that of international software development. Engaging in a sanguine analysis of this industry with reference to an empirical study of outsourcing to Ukraine it is revealed that labour markets servicing ICT (Information and communication technology) are subject to deep, if fluctuating, social stratifications. With reference to the notion of the global value chain (GVC), 1 1 ¹GVC analysis focuses on the governance patterns and relational dynamics between lead and supplier firms at the sectoral level. The GVC and its predecessor, the global commodity chain (GCC) focus on the inter‐firm linkages and especially power relations between different actors (Feuerstein 2013). The similar concept of global production network (GPN) concerns the broader set of relations of power, positionality and value capture between all relevant firm and extra firm actors within a network (Thompson 2013). For this study on sourcing in the global software industry, the term GVC will be utilized throughout.
the significance of factors such as knowledge, language, citizenship and age as labour market differentiators for knowledge work is brought to the fore.     

Social upgrading and cooperative corporate social responsibility in global value chains: the case of Fairphone in China

In this article, we explore how a lead firm's strategy for corporate social responsibility influences the social upgrading of a supplier in a global value chain. Based on a single case study approach, we investigate the interaction between Dutch smartphone producer Fairphone and its Chinese supplier Guohong. On the one hand, the case illustrates how a cooperative approach to corporate social responsibility can lead to progress in suppliers' social upgrading. In particular, we highlight the role of a so‐called workers' welfare fund as a mechanism not only for improving measurable labour standards but also for enabling rights. On the other hand, the case demonstrates how the limited production and technological capabilities of the suppliers, a competitive market environment and lead firms' limited strategic access to the supply chain might constrain the extent of social upgrading through a cooperative approach towards corporate social responsibility in a global value chain.     

Kenya's tourist industry and global production networks: gender,race and inequality

In this article, I consider the position of gender and race in the tourism global production network in Kenya. To address a gap in scholarship on global production networks, I explore the racial and gender characteristics evident in functionally upgraded national tour operators and socially upgraded workers and community members around the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The main findings address the relation of race and gender to disarticulation practices identified in ‘societal’, ‘network’ and ‘territorial’ forms of embeddedness supported by racial and gender representations of skill capabilities and tourist desires. These practices and representations support a production network symbolized by whites, Kenyan‐Asians and expatriates in the highest value segments and jobs, and indigenous African, Maasai and female workers in the lowest value positions. The findings highlight how disarticulation in economic and social upgrading is a gendered and racial process that perpetuates social difference and hierarchy.     

Labour in global production networks: workers in the qualifying industrial zones (QIZs) of Egypt and Jordan

The role of labour in global production networks (GPNs) requires further theoretical and empirical research. Through the case of the qualifying industrial zones (QIZs) in Egypt and Jordan, I look at how different production and labour control regimes have emerged in the two countries to exploit preferential access to the US market. I analyse how the requirements of US buyers necessitate the building of a flexible, low‐cost, geographically mobile production and labour‐control regime that can meet the needs of buyers in terms of cost, time to market, fluctuations in demand and shifts in sourcing policy. Migrant labour from Asia and the formation of an associated dormitory labour regime facilitated the establishment of such a regime in Jordan. The social embeddedness of workers in Egypt, by contrast, hindered this process.     

Making connections between global production networks for used goods and the realm of production: a case study on e‐waste governance

Recent scholarship on waste within economic geography and global production network (GPN) studies has identified several unique characteristics of networks for used goods vis‐à‐vis ‘traditional’ GPN studies focused on production, exchange and consumption. However, in un‐bracketing GPNs to include analysis of post‐consumption activity, identifying how the distinct moments of production, exchange, consumption and disposal/recycling are related becomes a crucial task. Towards this end, I present a case study on the governance of e‐waste networks that draws upon discussions of performativity and Hudson's cultural political economy approach to GPNs. In my analysis, I demonstrate how multiple factors, such as ideological differences over how to handle e‐waste, the non‐standardized nature of used goods, as well as production factors such as design choices and planned obsolescence, all shape and disrupt efforts to standardize and coordinate resource recovery and hazard mitigation in the post‐consumption phase of electronic goods. Such analysis moves past the novelty of GPNs for used goods toward a more integrated understanding of GPNs as a whole.     

Shifting global supply networks and fast fashion: made in Turkey for Marks & Spencer

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was noted that retailers in Britain had started providing increased variety and fashionability to their customers, had added mid‐season purchasing to their previous two‐season calendars, and that a high fashion and low price ‘throwaway market’ had appeared on the retail scene. Since then mid‐season purchasing has evolved into purchasing throughout the year; and the ‘throwaway market’ (now called fast fashion) has become almost the norm. Here we revisit one of those British retailers (Marks & Spencer) together with its Turkish suppliers and observe a trend towards the diffusion of design capabilities to suppliers that is more widespread than is suggested in the literature. We also consider the question of how most appropriately to conceptualize the nature of these retailer‐ supplier relations in today's circumstances. We especially look into the manner in which these relations are reflected in price negotiations, the eventual distribution of the value‐added, and the nature of everyday interactions such as accreditation and reclamation practices. We conclude that even though Turkish suppliers seem to be successfully upgrading into design–a high value‐added activity–the question of whether or not this development has entailed a renegotiation of power between retailer and supplier remains a complicated one.     

Vernacularization on the ground: local uses of global women's rights in Peru,China, India and the United States

The articles published in this special journal issue examine how global ideas about women's rights actually get used in four contexts – China, India, Peru and the United States. Our findings result from collaborative research conducted by teams in each country. We call the process of appropriation and local adoption of globally generated ideas and strategies vernacularization. In each country, vernacularization differed depending on the contents of the global women's rights packages at play, the work of vernacularizers and the different social positions they occupy, how human rights ideas are framed, the channels and technologies of transmission, and the local geographies of history and culture within which circulation and vernacularization take place. We find that vernacularization is a widespread practice that takes different forms in different kinds of organizations and in different cultural and historical contexts. Ongoing tensions between global and national rights ideas are quite common. Finally, our work brings to light two dilemmas in the way human rights are appropriated and used – a resonance dilemma and an advocacy dilemma – both arising from the disparity between human rights as law and human rights as a social movement.     

Triadic closure in two-mode networks: Redefining the global and local clustering coefficients

As the vast majority of network measures are defined for one-mode networks, two-mode networks often have to be projected onto one-mode networks to be analyzed. A number of issues arise in this transformation process, especially when analyzing ties among nodes’ contacts. For example, the values attained by the global and local clustering coefficients on projected random two-mode networks deviate from the expected values in corresponding classical one-mode networks. Moreover, both the local clustering coefficient and constraint (structural holes) are inversely associated to nodes’ two-mode degree. To overcome these issues, this paper proposes redefinitions of the clustering coefficients for two-mode networks.     

Global decisions versus local realities: Sustainability standards,priorities and upgrading dynamics in agricultural global production networks

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) in global production networks (GPNs) have grown significantly in prominence. Existing research largely assumed that VSSs create linear upgrading outcomes for all GPN actors and has studied VSSs from the point of adoption in the GPNs, rather than a broader range of stages in their lifecycle. To address these limitations, and building on literature around power and agency in GPNs, we develop the constellation of priorities (CoP) model to unpack the diverse and often diverging boardroom (Northern lead firm) and local (Southern supplier) priorities involved in such standards. Through in-depth fieldwork on horticulture in Kenya and cocoa in Nicaragua across the VSS lifecycle, we find significant divergences in priorities between farmer groups in both countries and lead firms in the UK and Germany. We demonstrate analytically and empirically that diverging priorities coupled with power asymmetries produced contestations, leading to simultaneous economic and environmental downgrading, and social upgrading.