Orchestrating international production networks when formal authority shifts

Abstract

We investigate how a brand-owning MNE can coordinate and safeguard exchanges in its international production network following a decline in formal authority and a shift in ‘hub firm’ status to another member of the network. Our empirical material is drawn from a case study of a Norwegian shipbuilder. We illuminate what mechanisms are used by a network orchestrator in a peripheral position with limited formal authority, when they are used, and by whom they are developed and deployed. Our findings question and extend theorizations that assume a single, stable orchestrator, and that typically give primacy to the ‘executive suite’.