Transnational Capitalism After Postcolonialism
Bridget Kustin, Juliane Reinecke, and Jimmy Donaghey recently published a powerful article entitled Transnational Capitalism After Postcolonialism: Researching the Interfaces in Global Supply Chains. The authors critically examine the ethical and analytical challenges of researching global supply chains, particularly in contexts shaped by power asymmetries between the Global North and South. Through a case study of the Bangladesh Accord, established after the Rana Plaza disaster, they argue for a better understanding of transnational interfaces where actors from different regions negotiate capitalist relations. Challenging the dominance of postcolonial theory’s discursive focus, the article draws on Vivek Chibber’s Marxian critique to reintroduce class and material power relations into the analysis. It emphasizes that a sole focus on cultural representation can obscure deeper structural inequalities embedded in global capitalism. I believe that integrating postcolonial ethics with Marxism is an innovative way to study SCM phenomena. This article could inspire future research to investigate how global capitalist dynamics shape labor, justice, and representation across complex transnational interfaces.
Kustin, B., Reinecke, J. & Donaghey, J. (2025). Transnational Capitalism After Postcolonialism: Researching the Interfaces in Global Supply Chains. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-025-05985-z
What the iPhone Can Teach Politicians About Trade
I increasingly wish that politicians would acquire basic knowledge of supply chains. In their insightful article The Guts of an Apple iPhone Show Exactly What Trump Gets Wrong About Trade, Dedrick, Linden, and Kraemer critique common misconceptions surrounding reshoring, using the iPhone to illustrate complexities in global supply chains. Amidst debates intensified by Trump’s tariffs on imports, the authors emphasize that China actually contributes minimal value – less than $10 per phone – to the manufacturing of an iPhone, despite high assembly costs appearing on trade deficits. Most significant value comes from the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, reflecting a supply chain where assembly location does not equate to economic dominance. The authors demonstrate that reshoring manufacturing, particularly for products like iPhones, would neither boost the U.S. economy nor restore high-value jobs. Political decision-makers should recognize global supply chains’ complexity. What we need are informed decisions that appreciate how value is created in today’s interconnected global economy – not simplistic trade policies.
Food Supply Chain Emissions
The importance of food supply chain emissions has increased. According to a study, entitled Food Systems Are Responsible for a Third of Global Anthropogenic GHG Emissions, recently published in Nature Food by Monica Crippa et al. (2021), our food systems emit 34% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions every year. It turns out that “[t]he largest contribution came from agriculture and land use/land-use change activities (71%), with the remaining were from supply chain activities: retail, transport, consumption, fuel production, waste management, industrial processes and packaging”. What is remarkable about this study is the level of detail and size of the dataset, called EDGAR-FOOD, which identifies the sources of greenhouse gas emissions across the entire food production and supply chain. One of the coauthors argues that “[a]ny policy decision requires a good and robust evidence base”, hoping that “EDGAR-FOOD will be helpful in identifying where action to reduce food system greenhouse gas emissions is most effective”.
Crippa, M., Solazzo, E., Guizzardi, D., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Tubiello, F. N., & Leip, A. (2021). Food Systems Are Responsible for a Third of Global Anthropogenic GHG Emissions. Nature Food, 2, 198–209. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00225-9
Let Us Not Go Back To Normal
Many observers are currently talking about how we could go back to normal as quickly as possible. But what is “normality” and is it desirable? Should we really turn to cost reduction and just-in-time processes again? Wasn’t that the reason to put all medical supply eggs in the China basket? Didn’t that make our supply chains extremely vulnerable? We should accept the corona crisis as a warning sign, as an opportunity to fundamentally question the structure of our global supply chains. The corona crisis has fortunately led to effective political measures worldwide. Based on scientific knowledge, political decision-makers seem to be able to anticipate the catastrophic consequences of not taking such measures. These measures certainly hurt, but they are necessary. Unfortunately, effective measures to flatten the curve of the climate and biodiversity crises have so far largely failed to materialize. The corona crisis has shown us that we cannot look at global supply chains in isolation, but can only understand them in a larger context, and we have understood that they require reformation. Hopefully we will be able to transfer this understanding to other crises. Instead of going back to normal, we should anticipate the catastrophic consequences of the old model and reimagine our global supply chains accordingly, thereby having the larger picture in mind. If we can do that, then there is at least something good about the corona crisis, however tragic it is overall. This transformation of our economic system should also guide our academic work in the months to come. Stay healthy!
Supply Chain Resilience and COVID-19
The COVID-19 outbreak demonstrates that our global supply chains have become very vulnerable systems. I had the pleasure of speaking to Future Insights Network about the impact of COVID-19 on the global supply chain and resilience last week.
Containers
I am currently listening to Containers, an 8-part audio documentary about how global trade has transformed ourselves and the economy. Herein, journalist Alexis Madrigal leads us “through the world of ships and sailors, technology and tugboats, warehouses and cranes”. I am sure this documentary will be interesting also for many of the readers of this blog.
Mapping the Cobalt Supply Chain
Cobalt has become a key commodity for battery-powered vehicles and other electronic products. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest producer of cobalt. The so-called “Copperbelt” in the southeastern part of the country hosts most of the cobalt ore, mainly extracted through large-scale industrial mining but also through artisanal and small-scale mining activities by more than 100,000 miners. The sector faces numerous sustainability challenges within local supply chains, such as child work and other human rights violations. The Federal Institute of Geosciences and Natural Resources from Germany has now published a report, titled Mapping of the Artisanal Copper-Cobalt Mining Sector in the Provinces of Haut-Katanga and Lualaba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which analyzes the cobalt supply chain in the Congo. The focus of the mapping lay on the beginning of the supply chain, i.e. from the cobalt ore to the first domestic sale of production, which is often overlooked by Western consumers and users.
Supply Chains in the Bronze Age
The European car industry has supply chains that criss-cross the English Channel. Therefore, 23 automotive business associations across Europe have now joined forces to caution against a no-deal Brexit. “The UK’s departure from the EU without a deal would trigger a seismic shift in trading conditions, with billions of euros of tariffs threatening to impact consumer choice and affordability on both sides of the Channel,” their joint statement says. However, pan-European supply chains are not a new idea. A research team has now uncovered the geographic origin of archaeological tin artifacts from the Mediterranean. They could demonstrate that tin from Israel, Turkey and Greece originated from tin deposits in Europe. These findings show that even in the Bronze Age, i.e. around 4000 years ago, far-reaching and complex trade routes must have existed between the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe. It is interesting to observe that millenia-old truths have been forgotten by those promoting a no-deal Brexit these days.
Berger, D. et al. (2015). Isotope Systematics and Chemical Composition of Tin Ingots from Mochlos (Crete) and other Late Bronze Age Sites in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea: An Ultimate Key to Tin Provenance? PLoS ONE 14 (6), e0218326. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218326
Supply-chain Trade
Today, I would like to call attention to a highly-cited article by Baldwin & Lopez-Gonzalez, titled Supply-chain Trade: A Portrait of Global Patterns and Several Testable Hypotheses, which was published in The World Economy in 2015. The journal’s perspective – trade policy and other open economy issues – differs from the supply chain management perspective I normally talk about here, which gives this article an interesting complementary perspective. The authors use the term “supply-chain trade” to characterize “complex cross-border flows of goods, know-how, investment, services and people”. They compare two positions: “According to policymakers [supply-chain trade] is transformative; among economists, however, it is typically viewed as trade in goods that happens to be concentrated in parts and components”. Based on two rich datasets, they argue “that the facts are on the side of the policymakers”, as “[f]lourishing supply-chain trade has revolutionised global economic relations and the revolution is still in full swing”. Definitely a good read!
Baldwin, R. & Lopez-Gonzalez, J. (2015). Supply-chain Trade: A Portrait of Global Patterns and Several Testable Hypotheses. The World Economy, 29 (1), 65-83. https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12189
Justice as Fairness in the Supply Chain
Among the most interesting SCM articles I have recently read is Jack et al.’s (2018) recent study, titled Accounting, Performance Measurement and Fairness in UK Fresh Produce Supply Networks. Why I highlight this study here is because this is one of the rare interpretive studies related to SCM and it could therefore serve as a blueprint for those of us who struggle with the dominance of positivist studies in our discipline. The authors build on John Rawls’ theories of justice as fairness and apply it to the supply chain relationships between suppliers and supermarkets. They then ask three questions: First, “how performance measurement, risk management and communication of accounting information are used by intermediaries in an allegedly unfair commercial environment”. Second, “the extent to which the accounting and control practices observed support perceptions that suppliers in supermarket-dominated supply networks are treated unfairly”. And third, “what accounting and control practices would be indicative of fair commercial relationships?” I wish I could see more studies like this.
Jack, L., Florez-Lopez, R., & Ramon-Jeronimo, J.M. (2018). Accounting, Performance Measurement and Fairness in UK Fresh Produce Supply Networks. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 64, 17-30 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2017.12.005
