Agency, Temporalities, and the Mediation of COVID within Global Production Networks

Abstract

While the global production networks (GPNs) approach produces important conceptual insights into the causal factors influencing GPNs, studies have been less concerned with the temporal intricacies of decision-making by actors. This article extends the GPN approach by examining why and how firms in the Welsh automotive sector have constructed and performed particular temporalities in response to the upheavals of COVID. A process philosophy perspective is utilized for examining how temporalities are socially constructed by human actors through actual occasions. Actors weave the past, present, and future together in socially constructed temporalities, which are imbricated with the space-times of actual occasions. The article finds that the temporalities and space-times of actions to mediate COVID have been configured around reducing and maintaining costs, and increasing risk management.

Key words:

• global production networks (GPNs)
• temporalities
• COVID
• process philosophy

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the extremely helpful comments of the editor, Henry Yeung, and three reviewers. I am also grateful to the participants that took part in this study.