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Open research questions in Global trade, sustainability, and social impact

28 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,145 Global trade, sustainability, and social impact papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Furthermore, there are still few MSMEs operating at the international level, since the limitation of networking as well as a lot of MSME which acts solely to collecting the product that will exported, as for those related to buyers is broker who sometimes commonly detrimental MSMEs position with providing a relatively low bid that leading in profit margin that is insufficient to contribute for the MSMEs that will conduct an export.

    Strategy for Penetrating Global Regulatory Barriers: A Case Study of Non-Tariff Measures for Biopharmaceutical plant MSMEs in Lumajang · 2026 · DOI

  • However, few studies have investigated the governance composition and characteristics of MIs involving the UPF industry, nor considered the implications for organizing global responses to UPFs and other major food systems challenges.

    The rise of multi-stakeholderism, the power of ultra-processed food corporations, and the implications for global food governance: a network analysis · 2024 · DOI

  • Instilled by NAFTA, Mexico embraced transnational food value chains, yet the results were rather mixed, as the vast majority of producers cannot implement new standards and participate.

    Regulating to Exclude or to Enable: Institution Building and Transnational Standard Adoption in Mexican Food Safety · 2024 · DOI

  • Although the GVC literature has explained how global buyers govern GVCs from the buying‐end, the question of how global suppliers achieve governance from the supplying‐end remains underexplored.

    Supplying lead firms, intangible assets and power in global value chains: Explaining governance in the fertilizer chain · 2023 · DOI

  • The ILO‐backed initiatives were largely successful but remain insufficient to achieve lasting change in the ready‐made garment industry, where global brands’ supply chain buying practices constrain investment in occupational safety and health.

    The Rana Plaza disaster seven years on: Transnational experiments and perhaps a new treaty? · 2020 · DOI

  • The near universal adoption of the FCTC illustrates the increasing strength of these norms, although the level of commitment to implement the provisions varies widely.

    Global tobacco control and economic norms: an analysis of normative commitments in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia · 2018 · DOI

  • Drawing from cases in the fair-trade coffee sector, these assertions are critically examined and it is argued that, while fair trade can provide a symbolic challenge to commodity fetishism, in the end this challenge is strictly limited by the power of global market imperatives and the network's market-driven approach.

    Fair-Trade Coffee and Commodity Fetishism: The Limits of Market-Driven Social Justice · 2007 · DOI

  • Measurement inaccuracies in informal and semi formal markets pose a persistent but poorly documented threat to consumer welfare across Sub Saharan Africa.

    Measurement failure and farm gate income loss in Tanzania: A practitioner based study of legal metrology enforcement · 2026 · DOI

  • Using panel data from the past five years, this study provides an empirical overview of how tariff policies may influence Indonesian coffee export trends, while also opening up opportunities for further research on international trade strategies.

    Coffee Trade Dynamics: The Impact of Tariff and Non-Tariff Policies in Japan and the United States · 2026 · DOI

  • RTRS certification is almost a quasi‐mandatory sustainability standard; however, its potential trade effects remain poorly understood.

    Assessing the effect of the Round Table on Responsible Soy certification on soybean exports · 2024 · DOI

  • Finally, we outline the contours of a research agenda that suggests promising avenues for further investigation of the phenomenon of value chain and production network reconfigurations in times of uncertainty.

    Globalisation in reverse? Reconfiguring the geographies of value chains and production networks · 2022 · DOI

  • The analysis highlights how previously accumulated resources in the form of knowledge, finance and market were insufficient to prevent industry decline when it suffered a loss of legitimacy.

    Industry legitimacy: bright and dark phases in regional industry path development · 2021 · DOI

  • First, opportunistic RVCs emerged when suppliers found their produce rejected from GVCs for lack of standards compliance and began selling spillover produce in regional markets.

    The origin and expansion of regional value chains: the case of Kenyan horticulture · 2017 · DOI

  • Empirical results confirm that the heterogeneity of firms, global and local linkages and the wider historical, political, institutional and economic context have all played a critical role in the process of upgrading, suggesting that a focus on dynamics of firm upgrading alone is insufficient.

    Upgrading in China’s apparel industry: international trade, local clusters and institutional contexts · 2017 · DOI

  • Purpose – Our understanding of the drivers of information sharing in export supply chains (ESCs) in general, and in agri-food ESCs in particular, remains scarce.

    Drivers of information sharing and export performance in the Jordanian agri-food export supply chain · 2013 · DOI

  • The case of the agrochemical industry in Brazil illustrates how traditional analyses that only address market structure are insufficient to fully explain the agricultural sector and its supply chain.

    The role of empirical research in the study of complex forms of governance in agroindustrial systems · 2012 · DOI

  • Yet it is scarcely less common to observe that the global economy does not operate under conditions of anarchy nor through arms-length market exchange alone.

    SASE Annual Meeting 2010, Philadelphia, USA: Pragmatic transnationalism: governance across borders in the global economy · 2010 · DOI

  • Three Latin American countries—Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador—have become significant exporters of instant coffee, but the benefits they have realized from this effort have been limited by the control exercised by transnational corporations over the global production system.

    The Struggle for Control of a Commodity Chain: Instant Coffee from Latin America · 1997 · DOI

  • Despite the dominant role the timber industry now plays in the economy of Sabah, little is known of the development of the industry prior to the Pacific War.

    The Timber Industry and Forest Administration in Sabah under Chartered Company Rule · 1974 · DOI

  • At this point there comes the argument of Belshaw and myself, that what is lacking is not technical knowledge (we admit that they have some, but not enough), but theoretical knowledge, which explains the technical knowledge and so helps it progress.

    THEORIES OF CARGO CULTS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS<sup>1</sup> · 1963 · DOI

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28 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 1,145 Global trade, sustainability, and social impact papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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