Contents:
- Reading Guide for Policymakers
- Reading Guide for Economists and Legal Scholars
- Reading Guide for Labour Law Experts
- Reading Guide for Trade Unions
1. Reading Guide for Policymakers
Corporate Groups and the Global Reorganization of Production Chains. Technological indicators for forecasting sectoral and financial crises
This study analyses the model of multinational corporate groups as the structural backbone of the contemporary global economy.
Its aim is to show how these groups, through their network of subsidiaries, joint ventures, and intra-group relationships, form an integrated and interdependent production system—yet one that is profoundly asymmetric in terms of economic and financial power.
In a context marked by the trade war between the United States and China, understanding these dynamics is crucial. Competition is no longer limited to tariffs or technology, but concerns the control of Global Value Chains (GVCs)—the complex web of industrial and financial relations that determine the actual creation of value.
China, for example, has progressively transformed its enterprises in strategic sectors (such as energy, raw materials, and semiconductors) into integrated state-owned groups, thereby reducing dependence on foreign capital and strengthening the State’s coordinating power within the global economy. The United States, on the other hand, has responded by encouraging productive reshoring and tightening controls over foreign investment.
Understanding how corporate groups operate makes it possible to identify nodes of productive dependency, monitor the actual distribution of value added along global chains, assess the impact of industrial policies, and promote regulation capable of distinguishing real exchanges from fictitious ones.
The study therefore proposes an integrated economic and legal model as a scientific basis for industrial and fiscal policies consistent with current geopolitical challenges.
2. Reading Guide for Economists and Legal Scholars
Interdisciplinarity as a Key to Understanding the Phenomenon of Corporate Groups
The phenomenon of multinational corporate groups cannot be fully understood from a purely economic or purely legal perspective. It arises from the intersection of market logics and corporate control structures, of production dynamics and regulatory frameworks, of fiscal incentives and legal responsibilities.
The growing integration of markets and the organisational fragmentation of enterprises have generated a system in which economic decisions and corporate structures mutually influence one another. Traditional economic analysis tools, focused on efficiency and productivity, are insufficient to capture the normative and power-related implications stemming from the internal functioning of corporate groups. Likewise, legal analysis confined to the individual company or to formal control relationships fails to represent the true economic and decision-making unity that lies behind the apparent plurality of legal entities.
Hence the need for a constructive dialogue between economists and legal scholars. Only through the integration of these two perspectives can models be developed that describe and, when necessary, correct the power asymmetries generated by corporate group structures. The study therefore calls on economists and legal scholars to engage in a shared reflection based on a common language and integrated analytical tools.
3. Reading Guide for Labour Law Experts
The World of Work as a Forerunner of Global Economic Dynamics
Labour law today represents one of the most sensitive and forward-looking vantage points from which to observe global economic transformations. Contrary to the traditional view that regards it as a derivative or reactive field, experience shows that the world of work is in fact where market dynamics manifest themselves most clearly and often in advance.
The organisational transformations of multinational enterprises—from production delocalisation to outsourcing and the establishment of corporate groups—are first reflected in the structure of employment relationships. The redefinition of corporate boundaries, the fragmentation of production functions, and the spread of triangular relations between principal, contractor, and employee anticipate phenomena that later translate into structural changes in markets and international finance.
Labour is therefore the first empirical indicator of the transformations of contemporary capitalism. For labour law scholars, understanding these phenomena means recognising the predictive and structuring role of labour law, which not only regulates conflicts but also translates new modes of economic organisation and the exercise of corporate power into legal form.
4. Reading Guide for Trade Unions
The Strategic Role of Organised Labour in the Global Economy of Corporate Groups
Among all institutions, trade unions are those that experience daily the concrete effects of global economic transformations. The fragmentation of production chains, the outsourcing of services, and the spread of multinational corporate groups have redrawn the real boundaries of the enterprise, radically altering the distribution of economic power and the position of labour within it. Today, collective bargaining no longer involves the ‘formal’ employer alone but a network of interconnected entities sharing functions, costs, and objectives across borders.
Understanding the economic logic of corporate groups is therefore essential for effective trade union representation. Only by knowing how value is created and how financial flows circulate within corporate groups can unions identify where profits are truly generated and how they are distributed along the production chain. This study provides trade unions with an interdisciplinary analytical tool linking labour dynamics to those of finance and corporate law. In this perspective, labour law and trade union representation regain their role as instruments for rebalancing power in the places where economic value is truly produced.