Event Details

Professor Gerry Hanlon, Queen Mary University of London will present this research seminar.

Global value chains as entrepreneurial capture: insights from management theory

Abstract:

We argue that management theory offers a unique perspective to unveil the political nature, and class basis, of globalised production epitomised in global value chains (GVCs). Through a critical reading of key management ideas we challenge several assumptions underpinning much GVC thinking and provide a potent counter-narrative to the widely heralded notion that GVCs equate to development. The analysis focuses on three core and related ideas within management theory – the entrepreneurial function, the management of knowledge, and standardisation. Taken together, these show the political nature of ‘management’ as class struggle. We demonstrate that mainstream GVC analysis is informed by the underlying Schumpeterian assumption that economic development, and indeed value creation, lie with entrepreneurial functions. Through Kirzner and Hayek we then advance an alternative understanding of entrepreneurship as essentially value capture. We develop our take on entrepreneurship by emphasising its inherent link to knowledge. Here we show how supposedly developmental attributes of entrepreneurs (and lead firms in GVC analysis) rest on efforts to concentrate and control, rather than disperse and relinquish, knowledge. We argue that knowledge concentration is twofold: while the most manifest aspect appears in constant negotiations between knowledge sharing and non-sharing inherent to outsourcing and the proliferation of GVCs, a less manifest but more powerful element of knowledge concentration rests within the division of labour between low and high value adding activities in the international division of labour. Drawing from Taylor and Veblen we suggest this international division of labour relies on standardisation – a process that unveils the class basis of management as a form of class struggle from above. We conclude by arguing that, like management generally, GVCs are not technical divisions of labour, but extended political organisations ultimately based on the continuous expansion and capture of value.