Matching global service standards—the role of intermediaries in economic upgrading of support-service firms in global production networks

Does economic upgrading lead to social upgrading in contact centers? Evidence from South Africa

Randhir Kumar and Niels Beerepoot

Journal of Economic Geography, 2021, vol. 21, issue 6, 899-923

Abstract: Economic upgrading of local firms in developing countries is a central theme in research on global value chains/production networks. Within this literature, few studies have concentrated on upgrading in non-tradable services. Even when serving international business clients these tend to be understood as locally rendered, peripheral activities that offer limited upgrading opportunities. Using the facilities management sector in Mumbai as a case in point, this article argues that such a view overlooks how: (1) more sophisticated demands from advanced international business service firms lead to enhanced standards and economic upgrading in low-end, non-tradable services, and (2) the emergence of global support-service providers acting as intermediaries in global production networks (GPNs) has contributed to enhanced operational standards in low-end support services. At the conceptual level, this article aims to elucidate the capital and labor dimensions of economic upgrading. This allows for a better understanding of the variations in economic upgrading across sectors and the ripple effects of economic upgrading in places where GPNs are grounded.

Keywords: Economic upgrading; service intermediaries; facilities management; global production networks; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeg/lbaa039 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jecgeo:v:21:y:2021:i:6:p:899-923.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Geography is currently edited by Jorge De la Roca, Stephen Gibbons, Simona Iammarino, Amanda Ross and James Faulconbridge

More articles in Journal of Economic Geography from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().