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The main purpose of this article is to identify some emergent issues when sustainability is introduced into global value chains. These issues deal with the conditions under which a sustainable global value chain might gain international competitiveness.

An exploratory research was conducted, based on a case study. The main players of the JOBEK's Global Value Chain were identified and interviews were carried out with representatives of these players. A thematic content analysis was developed, supported by Atlas TI software, using interview data and documents.

Three main themes have emerged, which can be considered as underlying issues of an emerging concept that the authors call the “sustainable global value chain”. These are: bargaining power between the chain's players; a differentiation strategy along the global value chain; and a collaborative awareness‐building process along the global value chain.

Although the findings result from a single case study, the characteristics of this case have allowed the authors to suggest an emergent concept for the field of international business: the concept of a sustainable global value chain. This has implications for the development of a new research field and for the introduction of some ethical concerns into this field.

Managers of organizations that participate in sustainable global value chains may consider the emerging concepts and their interrelationships as a guideline for strategic decision‐making. In particular, managers need to be aware of how the relationships between power balance, CSR product differentiation strategies and awareness building may influence the competitiveness of their sustainable global value chain.

The article proposes the emergence of a new concept that has important ethical implications for international business: the sustainable global value chain. The authors suggest that the further development of this new concept is likely to stimulate the development of an emergent research field.

This paper aims to question the capacity of firms embedded in global value chains to manage their natural resources in a sustainable way. Thus, it offers guidelines for more sustainable value chains.

While business strategies have focused on optimizing natural resource exploitation and on constructing global value chains to face sustainability issues, this study first explains why these strategies are not effective in preventing natural resource depletion. Second, it offers a model for anticipating resource depletion. The cut flower industry constitutes a central case to explain the model. Two other industry cases complement the demonstration.

To anticipate natural resource depletion and thus improve industry sustainability, firms must shift from the exploitation of endangered natural resources to the use of alternative local ones. This shift, however, encourages firms to reconstruct value chains and rethink how they create value within these new value chains. It also has an impact on firms’ growth strategy: they must replicate value chains on a local scale instead of taking part in global value chains.

The findings rely on illustrations from the cut flower, fishing and textile fiber industries. Generalization to other industries may strengthen the argument.

This study offers a model of sustainable growth for firms willing to anticipate natural resource depletion by offering a shift in value chains. It consists of exploiting alternative natural resources and of rethinking the value offered to consumers. Thus, it goes against current models that merely focus on optimizing natural resource exploitation within global value chains.

Managing diversity requires an understanding of culture. The majority of businesses have realised that competitiveness no longer stems from formal organisational structures but rather from the mindsets, competencies, and functioning of individuals who create, develop, and support the organisation and who frequently come from different cultural backgrounds. Understanding the essence of a culture, its components, variations, and how all these things effect the business and the managerial process is very beneficial for international managers. Businesses in global value chains need cross-cultural management practices to obtain a competitive advantage. Global value chains make it possible to benefit from the comparative advantages of other nations, and without cross-cultural management, these multinational corporations would be unable to carry on with their business operations. Although there are many explanations on global value chains in the literature, there is no study on the effect of different cultures in value chain management and how different cultures can be managed in global value chains.

In this chapter, the definition of the concept of culture, which is comprehensive and crucial in managing differences, will be depicted. Then, the concept of cross-cultural management will be emphasised and what cross-cultural management means and why and to what extent it is important will be explained. In addition, the impact of cross-cultural management in the inclusive global value chain will be discussed, emphasising the value chain analysis, how it emerged, its basic concepts, and its importance in the international context.

Massive increases in international trade and investment extend industries beyond national borders, so states and enterprises have become the two critical players in the boundary of industries. The purpose of this paper is to provide a new conceptual framework to analyze the role of states and enterprises in enhancing the industrial international competitiveness (IIC).

Being a research‐based paper, the topic is approached by theoretical analysis and conceptual development. The paper reviews IIC literature and argues for a rational study ICC in the context of global value chain. Next, the paper puts forward a two‐dimensional governance model and five typical governance systems of the industries of developing countries. Examples of typical governance system are given based the practice of Chinese industries, such as appeal, rare earths, automotive, etc.

This paper constructs an industrial two‐dimensional governance model of the developing countries in the context of global value chain based on the interaction between industry governance and market governance, and also presents five typical governance systems – free to market, public governance, industrial governance, joint governance and network governance. Different governance system reflects different roles of states and enterprises played in the global value chains and result in different IIC in the end.

The limitation is based primarily on methodology. The two‐dimensional governance model provides target‐oriented guidance for foresting international competitiveness of different types of industries. Future studies should include more in‐depth case studies on different governance system.

The paper presents a framework of the industrial two‐dimensional governance model, which emphasizes the important role of both states and enterprise in the IIC in the context of global value chain.

Global value changes continued to expand until the late 2000s. On the other hand, regional value chains have formed around major regional hubs due to the expansion of domestic demand in emerging economies, such as China, and strengthened trade protectionism since the global financial crisis. Such changes lead to the reorganisation of value chains, focusing on domestic markets (reshoring) or neighbouring countries (nearshoring). In particular, the importance of supply chain risk management has been highlighted following disruptions to the supply network due to the COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019. In this regard, major countries such as the USA and the EU are rapidly shifting to regional value chains for stable and sustainable production, rather than primarily aiming for production efficiency targeted at reducing costs. Industries in particular are more exposed to such supply chain risks under the existing structure and it now has become extremely important for businesses to take reaction to such risks. This is especially important for major industries in a country such as automobile or semiconductor manufacturing industries in South Korea. The aim of this study, therefore, is to establish the basis for the simultaneous growth of ports and linked industries by examining the existing structure of the global value chain for the automotive industry, which has a strong presence in South Korea’s domestic economy. In this regard, this research carries out a supply chain analysis focusing on the imports and exports of automotive parts. It also analyses the current structural risks and suggests risk management measures to secure a stable supply chain.

Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) have increasingly become integrated into global value chains, where they face social and environmental requirements from multinational buyers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of SMEs with respect to sustainable supply chain management in global value chains.

Drawing from a survey of sustainable supply chain management practices among 300 Danish SMEs, the paper discusses the concept of governance in global value chains. The paper addresses two questions: first, to what extent are SMEs affected by social and environmental requirements from buyers? Second, to what extent do SMEs apply such requirements to their own suppliers?

The paper concludes that SMEs face requirements from their buyers much more frequently than they apply such requirements to their own suppliers. Also many buyer requirements in the value chain seem to be latent in that they are neither contractual nor subject to verification. The paper argues that this points to a gap between rule making and rule keeping in sustainable supply chain management.

Research should focus on the impact of sustainability standards on the competitiveness of small firms in other developed countries, as well as in emerging markets such as China and India.

Multinational buyers and SME‐support providers should focus on improving the capacity of SMEs to reconcile sustainability standards with competitiveness.

The paper provides new data on the role of SMEs in sustainable supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the shrimp aquaculture export industry in Vietnam can achieve further development in the highly competitive global market particularly in the context of complying with food safety standards set by the markets.

This paper applies two conceptual approaches, local institutions and global value chains. The concept of global value chains helps this paper to understand what extent the external pressures are placed on the industry while the concept of local institutions effectively examines its responses to the external pressures. Applying this conceptual framework this paper examines an empirical case analysing secondary data and literature.

Market requirements on food safety are brought by global buyers through the global value chains governance structure to the local institutional function. It includes local buyer-supplier relationship within the industrial cluster, industrial policy and business institutions, although it is less likely to address the local backwards suppliers to improve the industrial capability of food safety standard compliance.

This paper has a research limitation due to the prioritised research scope that critically examines potential pathway for further development of Vietnamese shrimp aquaculture export industry. Therefore, it needs further comparative in-depth analysis with more vertically organised industrial structure performed by the countries such as Thailand.

The originality of this paper is to critically examine the conceptual limitation of global value chains approach in the context of food safety standard compliance issue, which is likely to be originated in local backward suppliers by applying a complementary concept, local institutions.

The paper investigates the effects of global value chains (GVCs) and technological innovation on exports. The paper builds a new dataset from two database, the EORA and the OECD stan database. Using a pooled OLS and a two-stage quantile regression technique on a sample of 8 OECD countries, the results suggest that the effects of GVCs participation are heterogeneous across countries. We find that at the aggregate level, GVCs and forward participation are negatively associated with exports growth. However, we only find evidence of a positive effect of backward participation on exports in the case of France and Germany. At the disaggregated level, we find that: (a) an increase in GVCs participation in low technology intensive sectors is positively associated with exports’growth; (b) an increase in GVCs participation in high technology intensive sector is negatively correlated with exports’growth. The findings stress the importance of GVCs as a driving channel for subdue economic growth in low technological sectors.

China has emerged as an undisputed leader of global business and as a preferred hub for global value chains. However, recent threats of the trade war, the allegation of violation of intellectual property rights and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have dampened China’s attractiveness. Multinational corporations may be contemplating diversifying their dependence on China – a strategy known as “China-Plus-One”. What could be possible destinations in Asia for such a diversification strategy?

Towards understanding the “China-Plus-One” phenomenon, the authors use a methodology of arriving at an aggregate ranking of the major economies of emerging Asia. This is built on a few standard indices such as World Bank's Logistic Performance Index; World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Indicator; World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index; Economic Complexity Index of the Harvard University; Economist Magazine’s Country Rating of Financial Strength; and Corruption Perception Index compiled by the Transparency International. Accordingly, the authors rank seven countries (namely, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh) next to China as possible destinations for selecting the “Plus one” country.

In the aggregate ranking, China ranks first followed by Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and then Bangladesh. This sequence gives some pointers on the possible shifts from China as potential hubs of global value chains. The authors observe the following: first, it is challenging to move away from China in the short run; second, corporations could pursue a “China-plus-One” strategy, whereby they may move marginally from China and relocate part of their supply chain elsewhere; third, in looking for alternative locations, corporations may look for the following countries in emerging Asia, namely, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Bangladesh.

The aggregate ranking method applied in this paper is one of the first applications in the context of ranking developing Asian economies based on economic, logistics, supply chain, financial and corruption metrics. It is one of the first conceptual works in the domain of identifying possible diversification options for the “China-Plus-One” strategy that can be extended to include many context-specific rankings.

The COVID-19 pandemic has showcased the lack of resilience found in the global value chains (GVCs) of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Existing evidence shows that MNEs have only recently and slowly started recovering and attempting to rebuild the resilience of their GVCs. This paper analyzes the challenges/inhibitors faced by MNEs in building their resilience through their GVCs.

A four-stage hybrid model was used to identify the interrelationship among the identified inhibitors and to distinguish the most critical ones by ranking them. In the first stage, we employed a modified total interpretive structural modeling (m-TISM) approach to determine the inter-relationship among the inhibitors. Additionally, we identified the inhibitors' driving power and dependency by performing a matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis. In the second stage, we employed the Pythagorean fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (PF-AHP) method to determine the weight of the criteria. The next stage followed, in which we used the Pythagorean fuzzy combined compromise solution (PF-CoCoSo) method to rank the inhibitors. Finally, we performed a sensitivity analysis to determine the robustness of the framework we had built based on the criteria and inhibitors.

We find business sustainability to have the highest importance and managerial governance as the most critical inhibitor hindering the path to resilience. Based on these insights, we derive four research propositions aimed at strengthening the resilience of such GVCs, followed by their implications for theory and practice.

Our findings contribute to the extant literature by uncovering key inhibitors that act as barriers to MNEs. We link out our findings with a number of propositions that we derive, which may be considered for implementation by MNEs and could help them endow their GVCs with resilience.