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Lind­say Whit­field

Professor

Subjects
Innovation Value chains Geopolitics Green transition Africa Asia Europe

Primary research areas

How firms learn

Understanding how firms build technological and organizational capabilities

Technological catch-up

Investigating how firms and governments catch-up to the technological frontier in strategic industries

Industrial policy and geoeconomics

Technological leadership requires strategic state vision and market interventions in collaboration with innovating firms

Creating and capturing value

Explaining how value is created and captured in global industries from global South workers to shareholders on multi-national corporations

Electric vehicles and geopolitics

Decarbonisation creates windows of opportunities for new firms and countries to challenge technological leaders, disrupting traditional industries

Scaling green technologies

The green transition requires building the manufacturing capabilities and markets required to scale new technologies through business-state collaborations

Understanding Economic Development: why countries catch up, forge ahead, or fall behind

I am a political economist who studies economic development as a non-teleological process that affects all countries in an ever-changing global economy.  

My work reveals how governments use industrial policies to build industries, how firms strategize to achieve or maintain international competitiveness, and how these actions of states and firms reconfigure the geography and distribution of profits in global industries. 

I have carried out research on the global apparel, semiconductor and automobile industries, combining a deep understanding of the histories of the industries and technological changes with fieldwork across a number of countries in Europe, Asia and Africa to understand contemporary dynamics. 

My research shows how technological leadership among countries changes through the concerted actions of state and firms that build and shape markets. These insights are relevant for understanding how to achieve a global green shift away from economies based on fossil fuels.  

As a teacher and mentor, I value the importance of a liberal education that teaches students multiple disciplines, the importance of history, and how to think for themselves. I strive to help students develop knowledge that is broad and deep. Above all, I hope to teach students the importance of reading, something that they can carry with them through life. 

Recent research projects

Creating and Capturing Value in the Global Apparel Industry

The Cre­at­ing & Cap­tur­ing Value re­search pro­ject iden­ti­fies and ex­plains the dis­tri­bu­tion­al out­comes in ap­par­el glob­al sup­ply chains among large ap­par­el brands and re­tail­ers, their share­hold­ers, their sup­pli­er firms across Asia and Africa, and the work­ers em­ployed in these sup­pli­er firms. The project aims to rethink how supplier upgrading occurs in the global apparel industry and thus what determines how value is distributed among buyers and their suppliers. It also seeks to explain the main determinants of wages and working conditions in apparel supplier countries, showing that national level factors play just as important a role as global supply chain dynamics.
Go to the project website

Circular Economy and Sustainable Development in the Bangladeshi Garment Industry

The global fashion industry must move from the linear take-make-waste system to a circular system, because making more clothes using virgin resources will not keep us within planetary boundaries of water use, CO2 emissions, use of chemicals and generation and disposal of waste. CREATE examines the circularity shift in apparel global value chains and the challenges and opportunities it presents to Bangladesh’s apparel export industry.
Go to the project website

Electric Vehicle Battery Supply Chain in Europe

As the global transition to electric vehicles unfolds, Chinese EV and battery cell producers are challenging European automakers on their home turf: European markets. European automakers and suppliers lack capabilities in EV battery manufacturing, and European countries lack the entire EV supply chain. This research examines how East Asian firms are investing in Eastern Europe to supply the European market, the government policies driving them, and the responses of European automakers and policymakers in the European Union.