Inter-Firm Finance in Global Production Networks

The process of moving production steps and, increasingly, business services abroad has become more and more dynamic and complex in recent years. Through outsourcing and offshoring, leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from industrialized nations have been able to take advantage of considerable potential for optimization. However, in terms of financing the effects are often the opposite and costs are increased; in many cases companies at earlier and later stages of the supply chain have worse borrowing conditions than the OEMs. With this in mind, this project focuses on financing in its analysis of transnational supply chains, an area that has so far been neglected in both theoretical and empirical research. Based on the example of a comparative study of the automotive industry in Germany and Brazil, the project will investigate how borrowing costs and financial flows in supply chains can be reduced and optimized through cooperative behavior, resulting in benefits for all parties and potential for development, as well as which parties need to be included in order for this to happen. Particular areas of interest here are whether and how these forms of financing are applied, how they are designed in specific cases, and which internal and external factors play a role.

Project conducted by: Dipl.-Wirtsch. Geogr. Christian Baumeister

 

Publications:

Baumeister, Christian and Hans-Martin Zademach (2017): Evolving Forms of Collaborative Finance in Corporate Networks: Insights from the Automotive Industry in Germany and Brazil, in: Fuchs, M., Henn, S., Franz, M. and R. Mudambi (eds.): Managing Culture and Interspace in Cross-border Investments: Building a Global Company, London: Routledge, 168–180

Baumeister, Christian (2015): Unternehmensübergreifende Finanzierung in Werkschöpfungsnetzwerken: Potenziale und Grenzen am Beispiel der Automobilindustrie in Deutschland und Brasilien (=Wirtschaftsgeographie 56), Diss., Münster: Lit-Verlag

Baumeister, Christian und Hans-Martin Zademach (2013): Financing GPNs through inter-firm collaboration? Insights from the automotive industry in Germany and Brazil (=Materialien und Diskussionsgrundlagen des Faches Wirtschaftsgeographie 21); Eichstätt: KU