Local and regional development: a global production network approach

Abstract

Regions have been central to the agenda of economic geography and the wider social sciences for at least twenty years now. Processes of economic globalisation – as manifested, for example, in the expansion in the scale and scope of the activities of transnational corporations (TNCs) and neoliberally inspired inter-regional competition for investment – have focused attention on the need for regional-level interventions among a broad community of academics and policy makers. In this chapter, drawing upon the global production networks (GPN) perspective (Henderson et al., 2002) we outline a conceptual framework that seeks to delimit regional development dynamics in a globalizing context. This approach focuses on the dynamic ‘strategic coupling’ of global production networks and regional assets, an interface mediated by institutional activities across different scales. Our contention is that regional development ultimately depends on the ability (or not) of this coupling to engender processes of value creation, enhancement and, most importantly, capture (Coe et al., 2004).

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