Global Components
A Research Consortium on the Restructuring of Supply Chains in Old Line Manufacturing Industries in the US and Europe
Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Principal Investigators:
Gary Herrigel, University of Chicago
Peer Hull Kristensen, Copenhagen Business School
Charles F. Sabel, Columbia University
Edward Steinfeld, MIT
Joshua Whitford, Columbia University
Volker Wittke, SOFI & Georg August Universität Göttingen
Jonathan Zeitlin, The University of Wisconsin-Madison
The aim of the Global Components project is to analyze the changing structure of cross-cutting value chains in old-line manufacturing industries from the perspective of the component producers that service them. Key features of these producers are that they are located in regional clusters and supply customers in multiple industries. Hence we propose to study clusters of firms in specific locations and the relationship between such clusters in different places.
We hypothesize that relations among firms in the components sector consist of shifting and often unstable combinations of learning and cost-cutting strategies, where the shifts and the instability reflect the needs of most transacting parties to constantly improve and innovate within ever more demanding market parameters. We hypothesize further that the instability of these relations is prompting actors at the firm, regional, and value-chain level to search for governance mechanisms to reduce the chances of costly coordination failures while permitting more capable actors to advance within the emerging structures of collaboration.
The Global Components Research Consortium represents a continuation of the Advanced Manufacturing Project (AMP), with slightly different personnel. Information on the results of that project can be found here (http://www.cows.org/supplychain/)
On this site, you will soon be able to find working papers of the project, as well as a password protected archive of academic articles, reports and book chapters on subcontracting, global supply chains, industrial and regional upgrading and economic performance in Europe, Asia and North and South America.
To enter the password-protected section, click here.