Global Factories: Concepts, Structures and Consequences

Using the concepts of global supply/value/production chains, the meaning of global factories is established in Section 1. Section 2 distinguishes between producer driven and buyer driven supply chains. How the specific structures of global factories have come into existence in the electronics, automotive and apparel industries in the Asian countries is described and explained in Sections 3, 4 and 5. Section 6 deals with the adverse consequences of these global factories in Asia. In light of this, a difficult agenda for research is proposed in the last section.