Competitiveness and Technological Upgrading in Global Value Chains: Evidence from the Indonesian Electronics and Garment Sectors

Indonesia is a rapidly growing and internationally competitive economy that is well integrated into globalized production systems. The global value chain (GVC) model has proven to be a popular analytical framework to explain how global lead firms structure and organize global production through dispersed global suppliers. Indonesia's leading export sectors, garments and electronics, are well integrated into GVCs. Engagement in GVCs, often led by leading global brands, is seen as a basis for local producers to become globally competitive and to grow. It also comes with challenges—local producers must meet the demanding pressures from lead firms on prices, on-time delivery, product quality, and social, environmental and labour standards. The possibilities for local producers to learn, acquire new capabilities and upgrade to enhance their competitiveness are often conditioned by the nature of ties that they have with their global lead firms. Yet, this paper argues, the GVC model fails to recognize agency on the part of local firms in this learning process. Moreover, particular forms of governance arrangements within GVC ties can restrict the prospects for local producers to enhance capabilities and upgrade. Drawing on selected case study evidence from the Indonesian garments and electronics sectors, the paper explores the relationship between distinct types of GVC engagements and firm-level learning and upgrading, and considers how some GVC ties may restrict upgrading.     

产业联系与外资溢出效应——对浙江省制造业的实证研究

本文探讨水平联系、前向联系和后向联系对外商直接投资溢出效应的影响。利用浙江省制造业数据,通过实证分析发现,浙江省制造业外资总体上具有水平负向溢出效应,同时通过后向联系产生正向溢出效应。水平负向溢出效应主要是外资企业带来的激烈竞争所导致的,产业后向联系产生的正向溢出效应主要通过外资企业的本地采购发生。浙江省内资制造业企业并没有从购买外资企业中间投入品而显著提升效率。     

External Leveraging and Technological Upgrading Among East Asian Firms in the US

This paper examines the innovation strategies driving Asian firms' investment in the US based on the resource-based model of knowledge. Specifically, it is shown that Asian firms' competitive advantage revolves around their ability to capture rents through a series of technological and marketing capabilities that collectively constitute the firms' knowledge resource base. The process of learning is documented by shedding light on the major sources of knowledge acquisition that enhance technological capabilities internally and externally. Specifically, this empirical research, based on a large-scale quantitative survey of Taiwanese, South Korean, and Singaporean firms in the US that was conducted between 2003 and 2004, shows that the firms in industrializing Asian economies (henceforth the IAFs) are directly investing in the US and setting up R&D operations there to acquire knowledge that enables them to become more innovative. A variety of technology sourcing strategies practiced among these IAFs was found, depending on their firm-specific variables (e.g. size and sector) and their prior technological capabilities. The types of technology and knowledge sources also go beyond conventional technological know-how to embrace the entire production chain from manufacturing technologies to expertise in marketing and distribution.     

中国电子机械制造业出口产品贸易网络研究——基于产品内分工与贸易视角

在区分中间/最终产品、一般/加工贸易后，描述了中国电子机械制造业出口产品贸易网络，并探讨了出口经验和产品关联如何影响企业进入网络从事出口和拓展优势贸易伙伴。结果表明：①出口地、目的国、出口地-目的国维度出口经验和产品关联可以显著地促进4种电子机械制造业产品企业进入特定贸易网络进行出口。②在位出口企业扩展优势伙伴方面，出口地-目的国维度出口经验对4种企业均有促进作用；目的国出口经验、出口地产品关联的促进作用集中在中间产品企业；出口地出口经验则集中在一般贸易企业。     

跨国公司地方嵌入新视角:基于地方劳工市场的研究进展与理论思考

20世纪90年代以来,跨国公司地方嵌入研究相对聚焦于资本密集型或技术密集型企业,而需要大量非熟练工人的劳动密集型跨国企业并未引起足够关注,建立在产业联系、技术外溢、社会网络等核心概念基础上的跨国公司地方嵌入分析框架很显然不能很好地解释劳动密集型跨国公司地方嵌入的理论与实践问题。在劳工地理学、新经济地理学等学科背景下,基于全球生产网络、关系嵌入、空间修复等核心概念,研究分别从劳工能动性的空间尺度、跨国公司地方嵌入的劳工要素、劳工管控对跨国公司的地方嵌入、区域劳工景观的空间修复等视角出发,系统梳理相关研究进展并提出未来主要研究议题,包括如何识别劳工供需因素对跨国公司地方嵌入的影响机制,如何剖析特殊劳工管控体制下劳工空间实践与能动性的关系,如何刻画跨国公司地方嵌入对区域劳工经济地理景观的影响,如何总结跨国公司地方嵌入与区域发展的战略耦合模式等。     

Asian Transnational Enterprises and Technology Transfer in Thailand

Like many of its neighbours, Thailand is increasingly interested in upgrading the technological capability of its indigenous firms through the inward investment (foreign direct investment, FDI) of transnational enterprises (TNEs). Its science and technology policies, however, remain fragmented, and they compete with regional distribution priorities. This paper examines the nature of technology transfer between Asian TNEs (Japan and the newly industrializing economies (NIEs), that is, the NIEs of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) and Thai firms based on the responses of some 145 firms from a 2005 survey. It finds only modest levels of technological transfer in production and process technologies. Asian TNEs evaluate factor cost advantages and government incentives favourably. Logistic regressions, however, indicate that government incentives are negatively related to technology process modification between NIE subsidiaries and Thai customers. But, the technical training of Thai workers significantly increases the likelihood of Asian subsidiaries undertaking process technology transfers. Among NIE firms, the ability to import foreign skilled labour further increases the likelihood of such technological activities. Finally, forward linkages among the NIEs are positively associated with firm location in the urban agglomerations of Bangkok and Chon Buri, and, among smaller firms. Our study suggests that prevailing FDI policies have little influence on technology transfer, while technology policies that favour large TNEs work against smaller NIEs that are engaged in modest technology transfer.     

Russia’s gas “Triopoly”: implications of a changing gas sector structure

The growth strategies of the two largest so-called independent Russian gas producers – Novatek and Rosneft – as well as developments in international markets and changing domestic energy needs have put pressure on the present Russian gas sector model dominated by Gazprom. The three companies are involved in a struggle over export liberalization as well as the conditions in the domestic market. Liquefied natural gas is top priority for Novatek and Rosneft’s main gas focus is on eastern Russia and Asia, but there is still room for considerable tension with Gazprom. The government wants to both improve Russia’s position in export markets and maintain stable domestic supplies, including to socially disadvantaged regions and institutions. Gazprom is insisting that if further access to export markets is granted to the Independents, then they must take greater responsibility for domestic market obligations. On the other hand, the key Independents seem intent on stopping or slowing down their expansion in the domestic market in order to prioritize export sales, and will certainly not take broader domestic supply responsibilities without better access to export markets. The balancing of policies involves strong players on the Russian economic and political scene, all with ties to the Kremlin.     

Hypermobility and the governance of global production networks: The case of the Canadian cycle industry and its links with China and Taiwan

Western firms engaged in mass retailing and in product assembly make frequent changes to their global production networks (GPNs). Indeed, some GPNs show a tendency to hypermobility, which we define as a rapid switching of economic links among manufacturers, importers, and retailers. This theme is explored in the context of the Canadian bicycle industry where domestic production collapsed between 1980 and 2008, following a century of remarkable stability. After a period of flux when Taiwan was the key player, China has emerged as the dominant original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of bicycles sold in Canada, with big‐box stores accounting for the great majority of sales. We connect this increasing fluidity in supply arrangements and in the global organization of the industry with the governance of these GPNs. Several aspects of governance are considered, including the Sloanist practices of the largest Canadian retailers, and the activist role of the Chinese state in directing regional patterns of manufacturing in China.     

Gender,Contracts and Wage Work: Agricultural Restructuring in Brazil's São Francisco Valley

Brazil?s São Francisco Valley provides an example of the ways in which agro-food firms are attempting to mobilize and control labour as they expand production of fruits and vegetables for domestic and global markets. In crops where cost reduction is a primary concern, firms choose highly ‘flexible’ forms of labour mobilization, drawing on the casual labour of migrants from the Brazilian Northeast. In crops where the quality and timing of produce are of great importance, firms use either subcontracting arrangements that mobilize family labour, or the labour of local women and children. In this way, firms involved in the production of fruits and vegetables show many similarities to their counterparts in certain branches of industry: they are actively experimenting with labour arrangements that tap the most vulnerable segments of the international workforce, and that appropriate unpaid family labour.     

Transnational corporations and the geographical transfer of localised technology: a multi-industry study of foreign affiliates in Sweden

Based on unique firm-level data from 323 majority-owned foreignaffiliates (MOFAs) located in West Sweden in the beginning of2000, we show that foreign-located affiliates of transnationalcorporations (TNCs) generate technological competencies, bothinternally as well as through organised cooperation with externalbusiness partners in the host country. This seems true not onlyfor manufacturing affiliates, but also for wholesale affiliatessupplying industrial products, as well as professional serviceaffiliates providing technical services. In addition, all threecategories of affiliates are engaged in ‘dynamic technologicalintegration’, i.e. a geographical transfer to parent andsister firms of technological competence that MOFAs have developedin cooperation with external business partners in Sweden. Thisindicates that not only the technological competence of MOFAsthemselves, but even the geographical context in which theyare embedded is a relational asset that is crucial for the overalltechnological competitiveness of TNCs. Above all, technological linkages were established with hostcountry customers. Important technological linkages were establishedboth with local business partners in West Sweden, as well asbusiness partners in the Rest of Sweden. Using a logistic regression analysis, we found that technologicalintegration is especially associated with affiliates operatingin competitive host country clusters, indicating that a largepool of indigenous technological competence acts as an importantpull-factor for inward asset-seeking FDI. However, technologicallinkages between foreign TNCs and host country partners doesnot come automatically, instead they need substantial and long-terminvestments in personal and non-personal resources.     

亚洲溢价--中日能源的共同困境

由于中东石油输出国对同一时间出口到不同地区的同种原油采用不同的计价公式,使亚洲原油进口价格高于欧美等国的进口价格,形成亚洲溢价。进入21世纪以来,亚洲溢价程度加深,范围扩展。本文在介绍亚洲溢价基础上着重分析了亚洲溢价对中日两国的不利影响以及亚洲溢价的产生原因,提出通过培育亚洲原油定价中心、中日联合采购等途径削减亚洲溢价,能维护亚洲能源进口国的利益。     

Revisiting the Natural Resource Curse: Backward Linkages for Export Diversification and Structural Economic Transformation

This article revisits and empirically tests the conjecture that specialization in natural resource industries (NRI) might not necessarily be a ‘curse’ for developing countries if it generates opportunities for export diversification in backward-linked sectors à la Hirschman. The article systematizes the evolution of the debate around the NRI ‘curse’. Then it empirically tests whether NRI might represent a sufficient ‘domestic representative demand’ à la Linder to favour diversification into backward-linked sectors such as knowledge-intensive business services and high-tech manufacturing. It focuses on the former and discusses the new opportunities for export diversification led by virtuous pathways of domestic structural change. It finds novel, quantitative empirical support for this conjecture, which complements extant qualitative literature and discusses implications that revisit the NRI curse debate.     

Asserting Europe's technological sovereignty amid American platform finance: Countering financial sector dependence on Big Tech?

Spearheaded by major technology companies (Big Tech), digital platforms have rapidly become key infrastructures for accumulation under global financialized capitalism, with consumer convenience and underlying practices of data collection, control and analysis giving rise to platform finance. While financial institutions are partnering with financial technology (FinTech) start-ups to digitally enclose customers, American and Chinese Big Techs increasingly mobilize their platforms to offer payment services, next to expanding their platformed services to financial incumbents. Observing the growing dependence of finance on American Big Tech platforms, this paper investigates how the shift toward platform finance in the European Union (EU) unfolds as a state-mediated and power-laden process between mostly ‘domestic’ (EU) financial incumbents and ‘foreign’ (non-EU) Big Tech firms. The starting point of the analysis is the European Strategy for Data launched by the European Commission in 2020. Through document analysis, we reconstruct the circulation of code words within ‘the Brussels Bubble’ in anticipation of- and in direct response to the proposal. We find that, despite its implication in the global financial crisis, incumbent EU finance presents itself as a fix for non-EU platform domination by Big Tech. The ‘technological sovereignty’ of the EU is marshalled by incumbent finance to defend market share as would-be pan-European digital financial champions. The Big Tech ‘threat’ is thereby transformed into an argument for strategic deregulation and forced data sharing by Big Tech for the sake of maintaining a ‘level playing field’. The outcome of these processes of strategic coupling is an alignment between the interests of EU data protection and the commercial interests of platformizing European banks.     

Can Host Innovation Systems in Late Industrializing Countries Benefit from the Presence of Transnational Corporations? Insights from Thailand's Manufacturing Industry

Innovation systems in late industrializing countries are said to be ill-developed and fragmented, lacking crucial key resources and access to technology and knowledge. At the same time these national innovation systems (NISs) host subsidiaries of transnational corporations, which could contribute to the development of the NIS due to their advanced technology and capabilities. This paper considers data from innovation surveys, self-assessment of technological capabilities and qualitative interview information in order to establish two things: firstly, the technological activities and capabilities of foreign affiliates and domestic firms in Thailand (as compared to Singapore, Penang and Europe), and secondly, the main mechanisms by which foreign affiliates foster upgrading in domestic firms and in the innovation systems themselves.     

Innovations, Competitiveness and Local Embeddedness: A Study of Machinery Producers in Sweden

This paper is about technological relations and firm performance in the Swedish machinery industry. Taking its point of departure in the proliferating literature on the localized nature of learning and innovation processes, the paper sets out to answer three empirical questions: To what extent are firms integrated in localized production systems based on buyer-supplier relations? At what geographical level–local/regional, national or international–are the most important technological relations found? Is there a correlation between localized technological relations and the technological performance of firms? The results indicate that few firms display localized buyer-supplier relations. Rather, the industry is highly internationalized, with the most important customers and competitors located outside Sweden. In terms of technologically important relations, the domestic arena seems to be more important. The majority of the most important technological relations link the machinery producers to other actors in Sweden. Three out of four firms may be classified as predominantly local/regional or national in their technological relations, or technology profile. This survey therefore supports the notion that there exists both local/regional and national innovation systems. Finally, however, despite the fact that most firms are fairly locally embedded in their technology relations, there is no evidence that such embeddedness shows up as superior firm performance, in terms of technology level or innovative capacity.     

Clustering and Dispersion of Duopolists in a Linear Market

The locations that two sellers will choose in a linear market has long been of interest. It is well accepted that firms will tend to cluster in the center of the market as long as demand for the product is inelastic and the market area is bounded. It has also been stated that clustering is less strong as demand becomes more elastic, but questions of when this dispersion occurs and what affects it remain to be addressed. This paper further explores clustering in spatial duopoly as elastic demand is allowed. Results indicate that the clustering behavior of sellers is related to the price of the product they sell, the cost to the consumer of acquiring the product, and the elasticity of demand. Locations of sellers in a linear market will lie between the median location and the quartiles as these parameters vary.     

中国受亚洲各区域的出口贸易溢出研究

出口导向型经济是日本制造、亚洲四小龙和中国之崛起这些亚洲经济奇迹的共同特色。中国加入世界贸易组织之后,出口贸易的带动作用更加重要。本文采用1985-2005年中国、日本和亚洲其他区域的贸易数据,以亚洲金融危机为分界点,利用模型分析中国与日本、中国与亚洲其他地区在世界出口市场中的关系,并最终得出结论:中国与亚洲各地区在出口贸易上的关系相互依赖,各方在贸易上的继续深化将会为这个国际分工体系建立一个各为有利的环境。     

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE, INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION, AND REGIONAL REPERCUSSIONS: THE CASE OF BRITISH SHIPBUILDING

A variant of the structural contingency model is applied to the post-war experience of the British shipbuilding industry to show how technological change has affected the market for ships and compelled shipbuilding firms to adopt a number of responses. These include changes in industrial organization and the promotion of government intervention. Some of the ensuing outcomes are explored in detail by focusing on the industrial impact of the introduction of large tankers and standard ship designs. The regions that have benefited from the interaction of technological change and market demand are also identified.     

Can Asia lead? Power ambitions and global governance in the twenty‐first century

Is the much hyped ‘rise of Asia’ translating into global public good? The leading Asian powers, China, India and Japan, demand a greater share of the decision‐making and leadership of global institutions. Yet, they seem to have been more preoccupied with enhancing their national power and status than contributing to global governance, including the management of global challenges. This is partly explained by a realpolitik outlook and ideology, and the legacies of India's and China's historical identification with the ‘Third World’ bloc. Another key factor is the continuing regional legitimacy deficit of the Asian powers. This article suggests that the Asian powers should increase their participation in and contribution to regional cooperation as a stepping stone to a more meaningful contribution to global governance.     

沉没成本、制度环境与企业出口地理动态

本文使用2002-2011年中国海关出口数据,探究成本视角下企业出口地理动态和作用机制。实证结果表明企业出口活动和邻近企业溢出均对企业在出口市场上的进入和退出存在显著双面性影响：企业出口活动不利于企业进入新市场,但利于企业继续留在国外已有市场中;邻近企业溢出为企业进入新市场创造了有利条件,但加快了企业从已有市场退出。本文还发现在市场化程度较低和政府干预程度较高的地区,企业出口活动和邻近企业溢出发挥的“双面性”影响明显。这意味地方制度环境能影响中国企业出口地理动态,塑造了企业出口的动机和策略。