Int. J Sup. Chain. Mgt Vol. 9, No. 3, June 2020 115 Measuring the Nature of East Asia’s Automobile Production Networks Shahrun Nizam Abdul-Aziz #1 , Normala Zulkifli #2 , Zainizam Zakariya #3 , Ramlee Ismail #4 , Mohd Yahya Mohd Hussin #5 , Fatimah Salwa Abdul Hadi #6 , Azham Hussain *7 # Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, 35900 Tanjong Malim, Perak, Malaysia * School of Computing, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia 1 shahrun@fpe.upsi.edu.my 2 normala@fpe.upsi.edu.my 3 zainizam@fpe.upsi.edu.my 4 ramlee@fpe.upsi.edu.my 5 yahya@fpe.upsi.edu.my 6 fatimahsalwa@fpe.upsi.edu.my 7 azham.h@uum.edu.my Abstract—The aim of this study is to explore the nature of East Asia’s automobile production networks by means of social-network methods. In this paper, we have also developed a domination degree index (DDI) and domination intensity index (DII) to measure the dominating power of each East Asian country in the automobile networks. The results suggested that the networks of East Asia’s automobile industry are expanding over time both in terms of the number of links in the network as well as the strength of those links. This result indicates that both export and import of automobile products in this region increase significantly over time. In addition, Japan has emerged as the main player, both in the case of auto parts and components (P&C) and final automobiles. The Republic of Korea has also emerged as the second most important player in East Asia’s final automobile networks, while China has become the second most important player in East Asia’s auto P&C networks. Even though Thailand is the third most important player in East Asia’s automobile networks in both auto P&C and final automobiles, the analysis of this paper has suggested that there is a possibility for this country to overtake China and the Republic of Korea to become the second most important player in terms of both auto P&C and final automobiles. The dramatic changes in the development of Thailand’s automobile industry as well as significant development in China’s auto P&C have been made possible by the pivotal role played by Japan (on Thailand) and the Republic of Korea (on China) – all of which have stimulated the development of their subordinates’ auto industry in a so-called “win-win situation”. Keywords— Globalisation, international production networks, automobile industry, parts and components, social network methods, East Asia. 1. Introduction Integration of countries or regions into the worldwide exchange network is one of the significant phenomena of globalisation. In the East Asian region, increases in trade, particularly in terms of P&C among countries under the international production networks (IPNs), are one of the important factors behind world trade becoming more increasingly integrated now than ever before [1-3]. Accordingly, countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, which formerly were merely buyers of various final products, have become members of the global production network and are now engaged in the activity of import and export of P&C. The rapid increase in integration network among countries in the East Asian region, particularly in high-technology industries such as the automobile industry, has led to trade networks in that industry becoming increasingly complex over time [4], [5]. This situation has led many researchers in the field of economics such as [6-10] to concentrate on the network of trade structure. In this paper, we developed summary indices that characterise that structure and the place of individual countries within them so as to facilitate discussion of the nature and development of such networks. This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 discusses the basic concept of network. Sections 3 and 4 respectively discuss the data and research methodology of the paper. Section 5 discusses the findings from global-level, country-level and ______________________________________________________________ International Journal of Supply Chain Management IJSCM, ISSN: 2050-7399 (Online), 2051-3771 (Print) Copyright © ExcelingTech Pub, UK (http://excelingtech.co.uk/)