Global production networks: A geographical review of a research tradition
Absztrakt
This paper analyses the academic literature on global production networks (GPN) from 2000 to 2024 based on data from the Scopus database. It focuses on the uneven international landscape of authors, publications, funding sources, publishers and citations in the GPN literature compared with the firm Anglo-American hegemony prevailing in international geography in general. The article begins with an overview of the existing literature on asymmetrical power geometries in geography as a discipline, as well as the scholarly project of internationalising, worlding and decolonising geography. After that, it presents the research methodology of the current study. The results section highlights the temporal dynamics of the rise of the GPN research tradition. It reveals the multidisciplinary nature of this field of research and its solid interest in the industrial sector and the geographical dimension of the economy. It identifies the existence of a ‘primary European core’ and a ‘secondary Asian core’ rather than Anglo-American hegemony in the GPN literature, as reflected in the authors, funding sources and case study areas. It also confirms the dominance of Manchester and Singapore as leading global centres of calculation, as well as the still massive British hegemony over major publishing platforms, which is particularly strong in terms of citation-attracting ability. Meanwhile, the results reaffirm the marginalised position of most of the Global South. Finally, our study examines the uneven geography of GPN literature from authors in East Central Europe as a global semi-periphery and draws some general lessons for the geographies of science and the future possibilities of promoting the process of internationalisation, decolonisation and worlding of geographical research.
Hivatkozások
ASSYLKHANOVA, A., NAGY, G., MORAR, C., TELEUBAY, Z. and BOROS, L. 2024. A critical review of dark tourism studies. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 73. (4): 413–435. https://doi.org/10.15201/hungeobull.73.4.5
BAJERSKI, A. 2011. The role of French, German and Spanish journals in scientific communication in international geography. Area 43. (3): 305–313. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2010.00989.x
BAJERSKI, A. 2020. Geography of research on post-socialist cities: A bibliometric approach. Urban Development Issues 65. (1): 5–16. https://doi.org/10.2478/udi-2020-0001
BAŃSKI, J. and FERENC, M. 2013. “International” or “Anglo-American” journals of geography? Geoforum 45. 285–295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.11.016
BARRIENTOS, S., GEREFFI, G. and ROSSI, A 2011. Economic and social upgrading in global production networks: A new paradigm for a changing world. International Labour Review 150. (3–4): 319–340. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2011.00119.x
BLAŽEK, J. 2012. Regionální inovační systémy a globální produkční sítě: Dvojí optika na zdroje konkurenceschopnosti v současném světě? (Regional innovation systems and global production networks: Two views on the source of competitiveness in the present-day world?) Geografie-Sbornik CGS 117. (2): 209–233. https://doi.org/10.37040/geografie2012117020209
BLAŽEK, J. 2016. Towards a typology of repositioning strategies of GVC/GPN suppliers: The case of functional upgrading and downgrading. Journal of Economic Geography 16. (4): 849–869. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbv044
BLAŽEK, J. and CSANK, P. 2016. Can emerging regional innovation strategies in less developed European regions bridge the main gaps in the innovation process? Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 34. (6): 1095–1114. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263774X15601680
BRIDGE, G. 2008. Global production networks and the extractive sector: Governing resource-based development. Journal of Economic Geography 8. (3): 389–419. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbn009
CARAIANI, G. 2008. Tendencies in the development of logistics services providers. Metalurgia International 13. (9): 67–75.
CLERC, P. 2020. Do not cross. The ‘North/South’ divide: A means of domination? In Decolonising and Internationalising Geography: Essays in the History of Contested Science. Eds.: SCHELHAAS, B., FERRETTI, F., REYES NOVAES, A. and SCHMIDT DI FRIEDBERG, M., Cham, Springer, 47–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49516-9_5
COE, N.M., HESS, M., YEUNG, H.W., DICKEN, P. and HENDERSON, J. 2004. 'Globalizing' regional development: A global production networks perspective. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 29. (4): 468–484. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0020-2754.2004.00142.x
COE, N.M., DICKEN, P. and HESS, M. 2008. Global production networks: Realizing the potential. Journal of Economic Geography 8. (3): 271–295. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbn002
COE, N.M. and JORDHUS-LIER, D.C. 2011. Constrained agency? Re-evaluating the geographies of labour. Progress in Human Geography 35. (2): 211–233. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132510366746
COE, N.M. and YEUNG, H.W. 2015. Global Production Networks: Theorizing Economic Development in an Interconnected World. Oxford, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198703907.001.0001
COE, N.M., 2021. Advanced Introduction to Global Production Networks. Cheltenham–Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar.
DICKEN, P., KELLY, P., OLDS, K. and YEUNG, H.W. 2001. Chains and networks, territories and scales: towards a relational framework for analysing the global economy. Global Networks 1. (2): 89–112. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0374.00007
DZWIGOL, H., DZWIGOL-BAROSZ, M. and KWILINSKI, A. 2016. Formation of global competitive enterprise environment based on industry 4.0 concept. International Journal of Entrepreneurship 24. (1): 1–5.
ERNST, D. and KIM, L. 2002. Global production networks, knowledge diffusion, and local capability formation. Research Policy 31. (8–9): 1417–1429. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-7333(02)00072-0
ESSON, J., NOXOLO, P., BAXTER, R., DALEY, P. and BYRON, M. 2017. The 2017 RGS-IBG chair’s theme: Decolonising geographical knowledge, or reproducing coloniality? Area 49. (3): 384–388. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12371
FERDOWS, K. 1997. Made in the world: The global spread of production. Production and Operations Management 6. (2): 102–109. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1937-5956.1997.tb00418.x
FERRETTI, F. 2020. History and philosophy of geography I: Decolonising the discipline, diversifying archives and historicising radicalism. Progress in Human Geography 44. (6): 1161–1171. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132519893442
FOSTER, J., MUELLERLEILE, C., OLDS, K. and PECK, J. 2007. Circulating economic geographies: Citation patterns and citation behaviour in economic geography, 1982–2006. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32. (3): 295–312. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2007.00239.x
FOUCAULT, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York, Pantheon Books.
FRICKER, M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001
GIERYN, T.F. 2006. City as truth-spot: Laboratories and field-sites in urban studies. Social Studies of Science 36. (1): 5–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312705054526
GIERYN, T.F. 2018. Truth-Spots: How Places Make People Believe. Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226562001.001.0001
GOVERNA, F. and IACOVONE, C. 2025. Actually existing geopolitics of urban knowledge production: Questioning the ‘from anywhere’ of urban theorising. Geography Compass 19. (2): e70017. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.70017
GRODZICKI, M.J. and GEODECKI, T. 2016. New dimensions of core-periphery relations in an economically integrated Europe: The role of global value chains. Eastern European Economics 54. (5): 377–404. https://doi.org/10.1080/00128775.2016.1201426
GUTIÉRREZ, J. and LÓPEZ-NIEVA, P. 2001. Are international journals of human geography really international? Progress in Human Geography 25. (1): 53–69. https://doi.org/10.1191/030913201666823316
GYURIS, F. 2018. Problem or solution? Academic internationalisation in contemporary human geographies in East Central Europe. Geographische Zeitschrift 106. (1): 38–49. https://doi.org/10.25162/gz-2018-0004
GYURIS, F. 2022. Multivariate functions: Heterogeneous realities of quantitative geography in Hungary. In Recalibrating the Quantitative Revolution in Geography: Travels, Networks, Translations. Eds.: GYURIS, F., MICHEL, B. and PAULUS, K., Abingdon–New York, Routledge, 80–101. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003122104-6
GYURIS, F., JOBBITT, S. and GYŐRI, R. 2024. Hungarian geography between 1870 and 1920: Negotiating empire and coloniality on the global semi-periphery. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 114. (4): 652–670. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2023.2292808
HARAWAY, D.J. 1988. Situated knowledge: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14. (3): 575–599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
HASSINK, R., GONG, H. and MARQUES, P. 2019. Moving beyond Anglo-American economic geography. International Journal of Urban Sciences 23. (2): 149–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/12265934.2018.1469426
HEFFERNAN, M., SUARSANA, L. and MEUSBURGER, P. 2018. Geographies of the university: An introduction. In Geographies of the University. Eds.: MEUSBURGER, P., HEFFERNAN, M. and SUARSANA, L., Cham, Springer, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75593-9_1
HENDERSON, J., DICKEN, P., HESS, M., COE, N. and YEUNG, H.W. 2002. Global production networks and the analysis of economic development. Review of International Political Economy 9. (3): 436–464. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290210150842
HESS, M. 2004. ‘Spatial’ relationships? Towards a reconceptualization of embeddedness. Progress in Human Geography 28. (2): 165–186. https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132504ph479oa
HESSE, M. and RODRIGUE, J.-P. 2004. The transport geography of logistics and freight distribution. Journal of Transport Geography 12. (3): 171–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2003.12.004
IMHOF, N. and MÜLLER, M. 2020. How international are geography journals? Not international enough. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 52. (7): 1246–1249. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X20907608
JAZEEL, T. 2016. Between area and discipline: Progress, knowledge production and the geographies of geography. Progress in Human Geography 40. (5): 649–667. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132515609713
JAZEEL, T. 2019. Postcolonialism. London, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315559483
JOBBITT, S. and GYŐRI, R. 2020. East Central Europe. In The SAGE Handbook of Historical Geography. Eds.: DOMOSH, M., HEFFERNAN, M. and WITHERS, C.W.J., London–Thousand Oaks–New Delhi–Singapore, SAGE, 75–99. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446201091.n13
JÖNS, H. 2011. Centre of calculation. In The SAGE Handbook of Geographical Knowledge. Eds.: AGNEW, J.A. and LIVINGSTONE, D.N., London–Thousand Oaks–New Delhi–Singapore, SAGE, 158–170. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529739954.n6
JÖNS, H. and FREYTAG, T. 2016. Boundary spanning in social and cultural geography. Social & Cultural Geography 17. (1): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2015.1126628
KANO, L., TSANG, E.W.K. and YEUNG, H.W. 2020. Global value chains: A review of the multi-disciplinary literature. Journal of International Business Studies 51. (4): 577–622. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-020-00304-2
KOTHARI, A., SALLEH, A., ESCOBAR, A., DEMARIA, F. and ACOSTA, A. 2019. Pluriverse, a Post-Development Dictionary. New Delhi, Tulika Books and Authorsupfront.
KUBEŠ, J. and KOVÁCS, Z. 2020. The kaleidoscope of gentrification in post-socialist cities. Urban Studies 57. (13): 2591–2611. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019889257
LATOUR, B. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
LEVY, D.L. 2008. Political contestation in global production networks. Academy of Management Review 33. (4): 943–963. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2008.34422006
MACKINNON, D. 2012. Beyond strategic coupling: Reassessing the firm-region nexus in global production networks. Journal of Economic Geography 12. (1): 227–245. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbr009
MAYHEW, R.J. and WITHERS, C.W.J. 2020. Geographies of Knowledge: Science, Scale, and Spatiality in the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press.
MEUSBURGER, P. and SCHUCH, T. (eds.) 2012. Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University: Spatio-Temporal Relations of Academic Knowledge Production. Knittlingen, Bibliotheca Palatina.
MEUSBURGER, P. 2015. Relations between knowledge and power: An overview of research questions and concepts. In Geographies of Knowledge and Power. Eds.: MEUSBURGER, P., GREGORY, D. and SUARSANA, L., Dordrecht, Springer, 19–74. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9960-7_2
MEUSBURGER, P. 2018. Knowledge environments at universities: Some theoretical and methodological considerations. In Geographies of the University. Eds.: MEUSBURGER, P., HEFFERNAN, M. and SUARSANA, L., Cham, Springer, 253–290. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75593-9_7
MIGNOLO, W.D. 2009. Epistemic disobedience: Independent thought and decolonial freedom. Theory, Culture and Society 26. (7–8): 159–181. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409349275
MINCA, C. 2018. The cosmopolitan geographer’s dilemma: Or, will national geographies survive neo-liberalism? Geographische Zeitschrift 106. (1): 4–15. https://doi.org/10.25162/gz-2018-0001
MOLNÁR, E., DÉZSI, G., LENGYEL, I.M. and KOZMA, G. 2018. Vidéki nagyvárosaink gazdaságának összehasonlító elemzése (A comparative analysis of the Hungarian minor cities). Területi Statisztika 58. (6): 610–637. https://doi.org/10.15196/TS580604
MOLNÁR, E., KOZMA, G., MÉSZÁROS, M. and KISS, É. 2020. Upgrading and the geography of the Hungarian automotive industry in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 69. (2): 137–155. https://doi.org/10.15201/hungeobull.69.2.4
MÜLLER, M. 2021. Worlding geography: From linguistic privilege to decolonial anywheres. Progress in Human Geography 45. (6): 1440–1466. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132520979356
NAGY, E., GAJZÁGÓ, G., MIHÁLY, M. and MOLNÁR, E. 2021. Crisis, institutional change and peripheral industrialization: Municipal-central state relations and changing dependencies in three old industrial towns of Hungary. Applied Geography 136. 102576. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102576
NDLOVU-GATSHENI, S.J. 2021. The cognitive empire, politics of knowledge and African intellectual productions: Reflections on struggles for epistemic freedom and resurgence of decolonisation in the twenty-first century. Third World Quarterly 42. (5): 882–901. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1775487
NEUBERT, D. 2019. Inequality, Socio-cultural Differentiation and Social Structures in Africa: Beyond Class. Cham, Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17111-7
NOVÁČEK, A., BLÁHA, J.D. and ZAJÍČKOVÁ, A. 2025. Border between West and East of Europe in the mental maps of European university students. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 74. (1): 23–36. https://doi.org/10.15201/hungeobull.74.1.2
PAASI, A. 2015. Academic capitalism and the geopolitics of knowledge. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography. Eds.: AGNEW, J., MAMADOUH, V., SECOR, A.J. and SHARP, J., Chichester, Wiley, 507–523. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118725771.ch37
PAASI, A. 2025. Geopolitics of knowledge. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography. Second Edition. Eds.: MAMADOUH, V., KOCH, N., WOON, C.Y. and AGNEW, J., Chichester, Wiley, 56–72. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119753995.ch4
PAIVA, D. and ROQUE DE OLIVEIRA, F. 2021. Luso-Brazilian geographies? The making of epistemic communities in semi-peripheral academic human geography. Progress in Human Geography 45. (3): 489–512. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132520923062
PAVLÍNEK, P. and ŽENKA, J. 2011. Upgrading in the automotive industry: Firm-level evidence from Central Europe. Journal of Economic Geography 11. (3): 559–586. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbq023
PAVLÍNEK, P. and ŽIŽALOVÁ, P. 2016. Linkages and spill-overs in global production networks: Firm-level analysis of the Czech automotive industry. Journal of Economic Geography 16. (2): 331–363. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbu041
PAVLÍNEK, P. 2016. Whose success? The state–foreign capital nexus and the development of the automotive industry in Slovakia. European Urban and Regional Studies 23. (4): 571–593. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969776414557965
PAVLÍNEK, P. 2017. Dependent Growth: Foreign Investment and the Development of the Automotive Industry in East-Central Europe. Cham, Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53955-3
PAVLÍNEK, P. 2018. Global production networks, foreign direct investment, and supplier linkages in the integrated peripheries of the automotive industry. Economic Geography 94. (2): 141–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2017.1393313
PAVLÍNEK, P. 2022. Revisiting economic geography and foreign direct investment in less developed regions. Geography Compass 16. (4): e12617. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12617
PAVLÍNEK, P. 2023. Transition of the automotive industry towards electric vehicle production in the East European integrated periphery. Empirica 50. (1): 35–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-022-09554-9
RADCLIFFE, S.A. 2017. Decolonising geographical knowledges. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 42. (3): 329–333. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12195
RADCLIFFE, S.A. 2022. Decolonizing Geography: An Introduction. Cambridge, Polity Press.
SCHELHAAS, B., FERRETTI, F., REYES NOVAES, A. and SCHMIDT DI FRIEDBERG, M. (eds.) 2020. Decolonising and Internationalising Geography: Essays in the History of Contested Science. Cham, Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49516-9
SHEEHAN, J.R. 1993. Technological advancement and the U.S. labor force: The case of the electronics industry. Conference paper. Washington D.C., Office of Technology Assessment.
SOLARZ, M.W. 2014. The Language of Global Development: A Misleading Geography. London–New York, Routledge.
TAYLOR, P.J., HOYLER, M. and EVANS, D.M. 2008. A geohistorical study of ‘the rise of modern science’: Mapping scientific practice through urban networks, 1500–1900. Minerva 46. (4): 391–410. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-008-9109-8
TIMÁR, J. 2004. More than “Anglo-American,” it is “Western”: Hegemony in geography from a Hungarian perspective. Geoforum 35. (5): 533–538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2004.01.010
WITHERS, C.W.J. 2018. Trust – in geography. Progress in Human Geography 42. (4): 489–508. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516688078
YEUNG, H.W. and COE, N.M. 2015. Toward a dynamic theory of global production networks. Economic Geography 91. (1): 29–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecge.12063
YEUNG, H.W., PUENTE LOZANO, P., BENEDEK, J., ŢOIU, A. and GYURIS, F. 2025. Panel discussion of Henry Yeung’s Theory and Explanation in Geography. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 74. (3): 233–252. https://doi.org/10.15201/hungeobull.74.3.1
YEUNG, H.W. 2009. Regional development and the competitive dynamics of global production networks: An East Asian perspective. Regional Studies 43. (3): 325–351. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343400902777059
YEUNG, H.W. 2024. Theory and Explanation in Geography. Hoboken, NJ, Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119845515
YEUNG, H.W. 2025. Decentering Anglo-American Geography: Theory development and “theorising back” from an Asian perspective. Asian Geographer 42. https://doi.org/10.1080/10225706.2025.2475624
ŽENKA, J., NOVOTNÝ, J. and CSANK, P. 2014. Regional competitiveness in Central European countries: In search of a useful conceptual framework. European Planning Studies 22. (1): 164–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2012.731042
Copyright (c) 2025 Ferenc Gyuris, Gyula Borbély, Viktor Attila Kocsi

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.