Comparing National and Industry-Specific Trajectories of Economic and Social Upgrading as Well as Various Strategic Solutions

This chapter serves to develop a classification of economic and social upgrading trajectories according to the theoretical approach introduced in the first chapter of this book, and to present empirical results according to this framework. Based on this classification and theoretical debate tentative policy recommendations for economic and social upgrading in global value chains (GVCs) are provided. In order to analyse the possibilities and challenges for economic and social upgrading in different industries and countries, a correspondingly open and complex theoretical research strategy is needed. We firstly suggest supplementing the analysis of value chain governance modes with economic approaches on power relations and rent-seeking possibilities in different market forms. Secondly—since the expectations of mainstream economists regarding economic and social upgrading opportunities for countries in the Global South through involvement in GVCs have not materialized—we take the concerns of institutionalists seriously, who underline that upgrading also depends on a country’s capacity to shape the national competitive and labour market situation through a series of political measures such as labour regulation and industrial policy. Therefore, in our interdisciplinary view, GVC approaches should be further integrated into debates on labour power, industrial relations and industrial policy.