An Empirical Study on GVC Governance Types in Japanese Electronics Device Industry

Abstract

Despite the ’GVC governance theory’ by Gereffi et al. (2005) being a highly influential theory in GVC research, there has been little empirical testing of the theory. However, in order to understand today’s global networks of division of labor in manufacturing and production and the realities of inter-firm transactions in these networks, it is necessary to critically and empirically examine such GVC governance theories and attempt to construct a more valid theory. This study aims to empirically test the GVC governance theory of Gereffi et al. (2005) using survey data on suppliers in the Japanese electronic device industry. The results of this study show that there are governance types those are consider-ed theoretically non-existent, and that the relationship between such types and governance is different from the theor-etical explanation.