Involution-Driven Competition and Global Production System Resilience: Evidence from the Electric Vehicle Industry

In recent years, the global electric vehicle (EV) industry has experienced intense price-based rivalry, rapid capacity expansion, and aggressive cost compression, particularly among Chinese manufacturers. This phenomenon, increasingly described as involution-driven competition, reflects a competitive regime in which EV manufacturers pursue extreme efficiency, minimal differentiation, and survival-oriented scaling. While such competition may improve short-term price stability and operational efficiency, its long-term implications for the resilience of global production systems remain unclear.

This PhD project examines how sustained efficiency-driven competition reshapes the structure and resilience of global production systems. Specifically, it investigates whether involution-driven competition leaves a structural footprint by increasing production concentration and geographic dependency within global EV supply chains, potentially generating systemic fragility despite short-term efficiency gains. The project addresses a key theoretical question in operations and supply chain management: can efficiency-oriented competition lead to systemic vulnerabilities?
The research adopts a multi-level longitudinal design linking firm-level strategic behaviour to system-level structural outcomes. It will combine text analytics of corporate communications and social media data with industry statistics, including production concentration and trade data. Using large language models (LLMs) as theory-guided measurement tools, the study will operationalise firm-level competitive orientations and analyse how firm responses—such as scale expansion and supply chain control—aggregate into structural changes in global production networks. Causal inference and simulation modelling will be used to examine relationships between competitive regimes and system-level resilience outcomes.

The successful candidate will:

* Conceptualise involution-driven competition within production and supply chain theory.
* Develop text-based measures of firm-level competitive orientations using LLMs.
* Construct indicators of concentration, dependency, and resilience.
* Apply advanced quantitative methods (e.g., system dynamics or agent-based modelling) to analyse multi-level production system dynamics.

This project contributes to debates on production system resilience, industrial competition, and the future of global supply chains during the green transition.

Supervisors

Dr Shan Shan

Professor Antuela Tako

Suggested Reading

Free, C., O’Connor, N. G., & Wieland, A. (2026). Global supply chains on the move: panarchical reorganisation out of China. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 46(1), 46-72.

Zhao, W., & Luethje, B. (2025). Manufacturing competency from local clusters: Roots of the competitive advantage of the Chinese electric vehicle battery industry. World Electric Vehicle Journal, 16(6), 319.

Arvitrida, N., Tako, A., Robertson, D., & Robinson, S. (2017). Duration of Collaboration from a Market Perspective: An Agent-based Modeling Approach. Operations and Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 10(3), 149-159.