Local Firm's Strategic Upgrading in Global Manufacturing Network: Evidence from Chinese Firms

The Global Manufacturing Network (GMN) is a new manufacturing system that has super manufacturing and servicing capabilities, and it is challenging traditional manufacturing conceptions. In this paper, after literature reviews of the GMN, our exploratory work suggests that there are four stages through which manufacturing firms embed themselves into the GMN and upgrade their strategies, which involve penetration based on low-cost manufacturing, network embedding and evolving, accumulating knowledge and capabilities, and strategic upgrading.