Economic and Social Upgrading in Global Value Chains and Industrial Clusters: Why Governance Matters
Abstract
© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.The burgeoning literature on global
value chains (GVCs) has recast our understanding of how industrial clusters are shaped
by their ties to the international economy, but within this context, the role played
by corporate social responsibility (CSR) continues to evolve. New research in the
past decade allows us to better understand how CSR is linked to industrial clusters
and GVCs. With geographic production and trade patterns in many industries becoming
concentrated in the global South, lead firms in GVCs have been under growing pressure
to link economic and social upgrading in more integrated forms of CSR. This is leading
to a confluence of “private governance” (corporate codes of conduct and monitoring),
“social governance” (civil society pressure on business from labor organizations and
non-governmental organizations), and “public governance” (government policies to support
gains by labor groups and environmental activists). This new form of “synergistic
governance” is illustrated with evidence from recent studies of GVCs and industrial
clusters, as well as advances in theorizing about new patterns of governance in GVCs
and clusters.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11535Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1007/s10551-014-2373-7Publication Info
Gereffi, G; & Lee, J (2016). Economic and Social Upgrading in Global Value Chains and Industrial Clusters: Why
Governance Matters. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(1). pp. 25-38. 10.1007/s10551-014-2373-7. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11535.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Gary Gereffi
Professor Emeritus of Sociology
Gary Gereffi is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Director of the Global Value Chains
Center at Duke University (https://gvcc.duke.edu/). He has published over a dozen
books and numerous articles on globalization, industrial upgrading, and social and
economic development, and he is one of the originators of the global value chains
framework. His most recent books are: <a href="https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/

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