Expanding Global Production Networks: The emergence, evolution and the developmental impact of the offshore service sector in the Philippines

Contemporary globalisation is characterised by an expansion of global production networks in services. Developments in information and communications technology have enabled the relocation of services across national borders, or, the offshoring of services. This has had profound implications for where in the world services are produced and where service employment is created. Scholars assume that a changing international division of service labour presents an important opportunity for developing countries to achieve economic development on the basis of exporting services, but empirically grounded studies from the perspective of developing countries are still scarce.
Over the past decade, one million workers have found employment in the offshore service sector in the Philippines, primarily in Metro Manila’s call centres. This study investigates the emergence, evolution and the impact of the changing spatial division of service labour from the perspective of firms and subsidiaries located ‘offshore’ in the Philippines. It empirically examines how and why the offshore service sector in the Philippines has emerged, how it has evolved, and how it impacts economic development.
Theoretically, the study expands the global production network framework by adapting the concept to the study of services and by combining its analytical concepts of power, embeddedness, and value with insights from economic geography and development studies to assesses to what extent services offshoring can be seen as a new ‘model’ of economic development. This dissertation contributes to a better understanding of contemporary processes of economic globalisation and expands economic geographical research on global production networks in services.