Sustainable value chains
Global Production Network (GPN)
Definition
A global production network is the globally organised nexus of interconnected functions, operations, and transactions through which a product or service is produced, distributed, and consumed, governed by lead firms and embedded in specific places and institutions. The GPN framework — set out by Neil Coe and Henry Yeung in "Global Production Networks: Theorizing Economic Development in an Interconnected World" (2015) — analyses how value is created, enhanced, and captured, how corporate and institutional power shapes networks, and how regions couple strategically with them.
References
framework content and lineage
Overview
What it means
Where global commodity chain and value chain analysis follow a product along a chain, GPN analysis emphasises networks and territories: why lead firms locate functions where they do, and what regional development outcomes — in jobs, skills, and value capture — result. "Strategic coupling" describes how regions plug into networks on favourable terms, a key idea for sustainable and inclusive industrial policy.
How it is used
Researchers and policymakers use GPN analysis to study industrial upgrading, labour conditions, and environmental footprints embedded in trade, and to design policies that improve a region's position within global production.
Why it matters
It connects the geography of globalised production to who benefits from it — the question at the heart of socially sustainable supply chains.