Anatomy of cluster development in China: The case of health biotech clusters

Focussing on China's health biotech clusters the study explores the anatomy of interaction in as well as between various clusters. While the literature has identified the existence of a dense network of durable interactions among firms and between firms and academia at a particular location as one of the most important prerequisites for well-performing clusters, we show that network ties extending beyond regional boundaries are equally valuable for the innovative capacity of China's biotech firms. Analysing the demographic process of cluster emergence we show that there exist different types of biotech clusters in China, which are closely linked and exchange knowledge and technology amongst each other. It appears as if further analysis of these cross-cluster links may provide important insights of how learning and innovation works in China's health biotech industry. Although China's science parks and industrial bases may on an individual basis appear to be badly structured, the organization of China's health biotech industry turns out to be substantially enhanced once these external linkages are taken into consideration. --China,health biotechnology,cluster,entrepreneurship,localization

Evolution and external impact of MNE subsidiaries in emerging economies : case study evidence from German MNEs in China and India

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Greening Global Value Chains: A Conceptual Framework for Policy Action

This is Chapter 6 of the Global Value Chain Development Report 2023. The Global Value Chain (GVC) Development Report 2023 explores approaches to build resilient and sustainable GVCs. It provides an overview of the most recent trends in GVCs, assesses the effects of recent trade tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic on GVCs, and illustrates changes in the nature of supply chains. It also analyses the challenges of climate change to GVCs and proposes policy options for enhancing inclusive development through GVC participation

Government’s Catalytic Role in Emerging Economy: Critical Comparison of China’s Conspicuous Strength in Wind and Solar Industry

In light of a conspicuous strength in China’s solar and wind industry in recent years this paper analyses the catalytic role of the government in inducing the institutional source of its strength. Critical comparison of the two industries show China’s renewable energy policies for wind industry was more effective than the solar industry through adopting a self-propagating functionality development through fusing the external technology with domestic industries know-how to co-evolve both production and diffusion through effective assimilation. This suggests a new insight for growing economy to devise effective policy framework to develop a globally competitive industr

Global and regional sourcing of ICT-enabled business services: upgrading of China, Hong Kong and Singapore along the global value chain

Offshoring, as part of globalisation, first started decades ago with manufacturing processes disintegrated along the global value chain and dramatically redistributed to low-cost regions. The next global shift of work involving ICT-enabled business services has arisen since the 1990s, especially featuring the success of India’s supplier role. The possibilities for the Global South to move up the value ladder are well demonstrated by the achievements of the newly industrialised economies in East Asia in the first shift and of India in the second. In the services sector, however, potential for upgrading is conditioned by quality-based elements, such as trust, culture and language, which vary both between producing and market areas. Flows are increasingly multi-directional, requiring attention to the neglected issue of demands from fast-growing Southern economies. So how do locations and firms in the Global South attempt to upgrade in the regime of rising services offshoring? The Indian experience especially in serving Anglophone markets in the Global North has been widely documented – but not that of East Asian economies, with their distinct characteristics and strong historic, ethnic and cultural ties with each other. This study examines the upgrading possibilities and constraints of China, Hong Kong and Singapore along the global services chain. For cross-case analysis, it focuses on three specific sets of services, including information technology, finance and accounting, and customer contact services. The concepts of global value chain, competitive advantage and capabilities are applied to reconstruct the phenomenon of services offshoring from both the demand and supply perspectives in the selected locations, and synthesise the dynamics between locational characteristics and firm strategies. A series of distinct upgrading strategies are identified, involving mixes of manufacturisation, knowledge-intensification and deepening relational capabilities to exploit both regional advantages of language/cultural proximity and established global links

Structure and agency in local path development: A comparative study of the online games industry in Shanghai and Hamburg

The question of how industry develops differently in different regions is an interesting topic in economic geography. Scholars have contributed enormous knowledge concerning various relatedness, the role of multiple actors and their agencies, and regional industrial preconditions, in contributing to local industrial path development. However, our knowledge on the agency-structure relations present in local industrial development is limited, if not totally lacking, not mentioning how such relations influence the industrial development trajectories and ultimately the overall competitiveness of the local industry. Based on such reflections, this thesis aims to fill such an ‘agency-structure’ gap in local industrial development by looking at the developmental trajectories of one creative industry—online games industry, in two regions that belong to different countries (Shanghai in China and Hamburg in Germany). In both cases, all sorts of misalignments between the focal industry and the institutional frameworks (including both formal and informal institutional elements) could be observed during the industrial development processes. It is under such industry-institution misalignments that the agency and activities of multiple actors have been analyzed. By comparing the two trajectories in different institutional contexts, the research contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, this research gives due attention to the structural forces, such as the formal and informal institutional structures, that affect local industrial development. Secondly, it contributes to a nuanced analysis of agency in local industrial development, including innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and place leadership. Finally, it reveals the dynamic agency-structure relations, which serve as the causal mechanisms leading to different developmental outcomes in the games industry in the two selected cities

Fusing indigenous knowledge and global best practices leads a way to global competitiveness in emerging economies: Source of China?s conspicuous strength in solar and wind industry

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH