The concept of competitiveness has been addressed by economic theorists
and policy makers for several hundreds of years, with both groups trying to understand
the drivers of economic prosperity and ...social welfare. This contribution does not
aim to address all theoretical thoughts that may contribute to understanding the roots
of the competitiveness of locations. The goal is to address the major useful theoretical
contributions that permit to identify the main drivers of a territory’s competitiveness
and therefore to assess the competitiveness of a specific location according to strong
criteria. The first section presents the major contributions found in the classical and
neo-classical theories. The second section and the third section concentrate on two
majors schools providing significant thoughts on the competitiveness of locations: the
Economic Geography (EG) School and the International Business (IB) School.
The purpose of this paper is to examine how scholarly research on foreign direct investment (FDI) to the People's Republic of China has evolved and been shaped using bibliometrics analysis of 422 ...journal articles published in 151 journals between 1979 and 2008 on that topic. The literature is dominated by the fields of Economics, followed by Business and Management, Planning and Development and International Relations, which together account for 95% of all publications. Ten percent of the most productive journals are responsible for 40% of all publications and 63% of all citations received. By means of citation mapping, four main research streams have been identified: (1) the motives and determinants of FDI to China; (2) ‘inside’ the multinational enterprise (MNE); (3) the impact of MNE activities; and (4) policy implications for the host country. Emerging research streams have been identified as the effects of inward FDI on (i) corporate social responsibility attitudes of domestic and foreign firms, (ii) environmental and climate issues, (iii) the institutional and societal transformation of China, and (iv) the emergence of Chinese MNEs and its impact on the operations of foreign MNEs in China.
Regional and global strategies of MNEs Rosa, Benjamin; Gugler, Philippe; Verbeke, Alain
Journal of international business studies,
09/2020, Letnik:
51, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We describe the extent to which the world’s largest companies (in terms of revenues), achieve sales around the globe, and have been able to penetrate markets outside of their home region. We try to ...answer the following question: Has there been a recent increase in the world’s largest firms achieving a global sales orientation, meaning a balanced, global distribution of sales? Rugman & Verbeke (2004) found that few of the 2002 Fortune Global 500 (Fortune Magazine 2002) firms, accounting for over 90% of the world’s stock of FDI, actually had a global sales orientation. A majority of multinational enterprises (MNEs) were home-region oriented, suggesting that much work on corporate globalization was normative, rather than accurately describing reality. We present the equivalent data for the 2017 Fortune Global 500 (Fortune Magazine 2017) list. Our data confirm that many large firms are still home-region oriented, but to a lesser extent than before, with 36 MNEs (up from only nine in the 2002 list), now having widely distributed sales across the world’s core economic regions. The question arises whether this relative increase in the number of MNEs with a global sales orientation holds any normative value for the firms that presently do not have such a sales distribution.
The concept of competitiveness has been addressed by economic theorists and policy makers for several hundreds of years, with both groups trying to understand the drivers of economic prosperity and ...social welfare. This contribution does not aim to address all theoretical thoughts that may contribute to understanding the roots of the competitiveness of locations. The goal is to address the major useful theoretical contributions that permit to identify the main drivers of a territory's competitiveness and therefore to assess the competitiveness of a specific location according to strong criteria. The first section presents the major contributions found in the classical and neo-classical theories. The second section and the third section concentrate on two majors schools providing significant thoughts on the competitiveness of locations: the Economic Geography (EG) School and the International Business (IB) School.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive overview of green innovation (GI) in China, which is carried out by reviewing the evolution of GI from 2000 to 2019, and the main type ...of technology, actors and localizations. When appropriate, GI is compared to non-GI. Design/methodology/approach The study uses patent data from the European Patent Office database (PATSTAT); these data are processed to map trends and identify the main contributors to GI and the location of such innovation. The findings are then discussed and complemented with academic literature. Findings Key findings reveal an increasing divergence between GI and nongreen innovation after the 2008 crisis. It is also observed that solar energy appears to be the main component of GI in China, with a shift from photovoltaic thermal energy to solar photovoltaic energy after 2008. Other areas, such as waste management, greenhouse gases capture and climate change adaptation, are less innovative. Companies play an essential role in the development of all types of innovation. In terms of location, green patents are mainly filed in China’s three main megacities. The study also highlights the significant role of the Chinese state, which led policies shaping the trajectories and forms of GI. Originality/value This study expands knowledge on GI in China, highlighting its main specificities and the role of key actors. It provides to the reader a comprehensive picture of China’s green policies and innovation realities. The results can therefore be used to improve the understanding of GI evolution in China and facilitate the formulation of new research questions.
Purpose
– This paper aims to examine the methodology used to identify clusters on the one hand and assess the economic impact that those may have on regions on the other hand.
...Design/methodology/approach
– The influential work on “clusters”lead by Michael Porter since the 1990s has become a tool for promoting innovation and growth at national and regional level. Even if the theory has become very popular, a few empirical investigations were conducted since. In a recent study, Delgado, Porter and Stern developed a model to investigate the impact of cluster composition on the performance of regions in the USA. They find strong evidence that industries operating in a strong cluster environment perform better. The aim of this study is to improve the methodology used in evaluating the cluster environment and then to replicate their model and apply it to a highly competitive industry in Switzerland, namely, the precision goods sector. It enables to look closely at the importance of the microeconomic environment surrounding an industry at the regional level.
Findings
– In Switzerland, the precision industry forms a traded cluster in three different regions. The model then reveals that those regions perform better. The results show that industries located in or nearby regions with a strong cluster environment experience higher employment growth rates.
Originality/value
– It highlights the importance of the microeconomic environment even in small competitive countries.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on Chinese firms’ innovation processes that are induced by foreign direct investment abroad. The study uses a patent and citation analysis to examine ...the extent to which investments abroad contribute to enhancing these firms’ innovative capabilities. More specifically, this study focusses on the role of foreign location competitiveness as an asset to provide technological capabilities to Chinese affiliates. Design/methodology/approach – Patents are good indicators of firms’ innovative capabilities. Moreover, patents allow to track the inter-firm knowledge transfer through the citations of patents on which they are based. The authors use an OECD patent database called “OECD REGPAT July 2013” that compiles patents registered with the European Patent Office (EPO) over the period from 1986 to 2013. The authors focus the analysis on patents registered by Chinese multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) based in Europe because the authors assume inter alia that innovations patented by Chinese affiliates in Europe are registered with the EPO. The sample comprises 3,010 patents involving 5,749 citations that the authors have individually examined. Findings – The findings suggest that Chinese MNEs ability to generate innovation based on their own knowledge is low, with a self-citation rate of approximately 4 percent. Patents by Chinese MNEs are largely based on foreign patents, especially from developed economies (at least 90 percent). The citation analysis also suggests that 39.2 percent of citations represent domestic firms in the local recipient country. This subgroup of citations is categorized as follows: 1.04 percent are M&A linkages, 13.8 percent are cluster linkages, and 24.36 percent are localization linkages. The remaining 60.8 percent of the total sample demonstrates that firms do not necessarily need to be collocated in foreign locations with domestic firms to exchange assets. Research limitations/implications – Patent and citation analysis considers only a part of the inter-firm knowledge diffusion. Some innovations are not patented and tacit knowledge diffusion is not observable. Moreover, the analysis focusses only on Chinese outward foreign direct investment to Europe, but a large part of knowledge is accumulated in China thanks to inward foreign direct investment. Originality/value – Many scholars have scrutinized emerging markets multinational enterprises’ strategic asset-seeking investments abroad that are designed to upgrade the companies’ technological capabilities (Cui and Jiang, 2009; Zhang and Filippov, 2009; Huang and Wang, 2013; Amighini et al. , 2014; De Beule et al. , 2014; Nicolas, 2014). However, few studies analyze the results of these strategies in terms of innovation output.
Purpose
The paper aims to investigate the role of specialization and agglomeration forces on industry performance in an emerging market, namely, Thailand. In particular, the impact of clusters and ...the influence of complexity will be tackled.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology used is based on the work of Delgado
et al.
(2014). Industries and clusters are assigned to a certain category according to their respective level of specialization and complexity. Performance measures are then computed for each category.
Findings
It was found that the agglomeration of similar industries and co-located and related industries increase the performance of firms in terms of gross output per employee and remuneration per employee. Moreover, the increase of performance induced by the complexity level of an industry was closely related to the level of specialization.
Originality/value
Building on a cluster mapping, this study brings new insight on the effect of specialization and agglomeration on performance in emerging markets. In fact, the paper show how performance can be enhanced in less sophisticated and developed economies.
This paper examines whether there are signs of demonstration-related spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI). It hypothesizes that the size and the extent of such benefits vary according to ...the level of the absorptive capacity of local firms. Using detailed firm data from Swiss manufacturing and services/construction, we find strong evidence for demonstration-related spillovers when (a) local firms are not far behind the technological frontier of the industry with a technological gap slightly greater than one, and (b) local firms demonstrate high investment in the absorptive capacity. The results are found to be more consistent in manufacturing than services/construction.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the economic development of ASEAN countries during the period 2000-2014 (after the crisis) with the aim of detecting the convergence and divergence ...of trends over this period and of providing a framework that could be used for subsequent studies in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the models developed by Solow (1956) and Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1991), the authors estimate absolute and conditional β-convergence through OLS, pooled OLS and pooled OLS with time period effect. The absolute β-convergence can be modelled by the relationship between the log of the compound annual growth rate of GDP per capita (GDPC) (or per worker) and the initial level of GDPC (or per worker). The conditional β-convergence is modelled by the same relationship, supplemented by other factors potentially affecting the growth.
Findings
The findings indicate an average annual rate of σ-convergence per annum of approximately 1 per cent, and of 0.4-0.6 per cent for β-convergence, over the period 2000-2014. Compared to other macro-regions (e.g. the European Union), these rates of convergence among ASEAN countries are relatively low.
Social implications
The ASEAN roadmap should address two interlinked challenges: the first one is to achieve coordination of the macroeconomic, institutional, legal and social policies within the area. The second one is to address the specific microeconomic drivers of each member state to achieve increased sustainable development.
Originality/value
This paper identifies the contradictory results found in previous studies on ASEAN convergence and attempts to clearly determine the optimal sample, sample time period and estimation approaches to obtain sound results regarding convergence processes.
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