Low carbon innovation in Chinese urban mobility:prospects, politics and practices

China represents a test-case of global significance regarding the challenges of urban mobility transition to more sustainable models. On the one hand, transportation accounts for approximately one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). China is globally central to 'greening' mobility as already the world's largest car market but with significant further growth predicted. On the other hand, the growth of (fossil-fuelled) urban mobility is a key feature of the immense changes that have occurred since 1978 in China. Yet in both respects, the need for a change in the model of urban mobility is increasingly urgent, as manifest in issues of emissions and air pollution, urban gridlock and its social costs, and intensifying unrest around urban mobility issues. China, however, is also the site of significant government and corporate innovation efforts focused on opportunities for 'catch-up' in a key industry of the twenty first century around the electric vehicle (EV). At the same time, the much lower-technology electric two-wheeler (E2W) has emerged as a global market entirely dominated by small Chinese firms and their Chinese customers. This is one of a series of four China low carbon reports outlining the STEPS Centre affiliate project 'Low Carbon Innovation in China: Prospects, Politics and Practice', led from Lancaster University. Taking a perspective that explores specific domains of low carbon innovation in China through the lens of changing power relations and associated social practices, this Working Paper provides an introduction to the e-mobility research package of the project, reviewing the relevant literature around urban electric mobility transitions in China and describing the project's research approach and potential contribution to knowledge in this area. It argues that, despite the disappointment to date regarding EVs, the evidence shows a highly dynamic and geographically diverse situation in China, but one in which a successful urban mobility transition as currently envisaged remains improbable

Impacts of institutional change on industrial economy: a China's automobile industry perspective

China' s automobile industry is a perfect example of institutional change it went through a series of development stages including the shaping up of industrial system, rapid expansion, and competitiveness improvement, as the industry’s policy system and the implementation effects improve. Our main studies and conclusions include: (1) Review and analysis of institutional change and the development of China’s automobile industry. The continuous improvement of the policy system of China’s automobile industry, a s re presented by the above mentioned policies, as well as their implementation effects are the main drivers behind China’s ever improving independent R&D capability and global competitiveness. (2) Quantitative analysis of the characteristics of the impacts of institutional change on China’s automobile industry. As the research shows, the growth process of China's automobile industry and its key influencing factors can be described with the Cobb Douglas production function model containing institutional variable s. The intensity of the impact of institutional change variables on the automobile industry changes significantly over time. (3) Case study on the impacts of institutional change on China's automobile industry. As shown in the study, the automobile industry policy plays a significant role in driving the development of Chinese automobile companies who should therefore take such opportunities to enhance technological innovation, resource integration and other abilities.A indústria automobilística da China é um exemplo perfeito de mudança institucional passou por uma série de estágios de desenvolvimento, incluindo a formação do sistema industrial, a expansão rápida e a melhoria da competitividade, à medida que o sistema de políticas industriais e os efeitos da sua implementação melhoraram. Esta tese analisou as mudanças institucionais e o desenvolvimento da indústria automobilística chinesa. Em nossa opinião as mudanças institucionais que se consubstanciaram em políticas industriais para o setor automobilístico contribuíram para a crescente capacidade independente de pesquisa e desenvolvimento da indústria e da sua competitividade global . Procedemos também a uma análise quantitativa sobre as características do impacto das mudanças institucionais na indústria automobilística chinesa. Como mostra a nossa pesquisa, o processo de crescimento da indústria automobilística chinesa e seus principais fatores de influência podem ser descritos com o modelo de função de produção Cobb Douglas, introduzindo variáveis institucionais. A intensidade do impacto das variáveis de mudança institucional na indústria automobilística muda significativamen te a o longo do tempo. Procedemos também a um estudo de caso sobre os impactos das mudanças institucionais na indústria automobilística chinesa. Como mostra o estudo, as políticas industriais referentes à indústria automobilística desempenham um papel importante no desenvolvimento das empresas automobilísticas chinesas. As empresas devem estar atentas a estas políticas e aproveitar as oportunidades para aprimorar a inovação tecnológica, a integração de recursos e outras competências

Catching up or being dependent: the growth of capabilities among indigenous technological integrators during Chinese development

The thesis appraises certain key processes – albeit rather limited in number and scope – widely assumed to be associated with assessing the role of technological capability building in developing country (DC) firms. The latter are affected by their DC status on both the demand side (e.g. by rapid growth of the economy via consumption and trade) and the supply side (of technological catch-up etc.). Such broad considerations set the scene for our specific study. In this thesis, the component of technological capabilities that we highlight by studying local integrated product providers is the capability for systemic product development. We argue that the organisational system of industrial firms in DCs plays a fundamental role in their technological learning performance. Here, the developmental context is stressed because we suggest that the knowledge about how to organise effective learning, termed 'social technology', is at least as scarce as the 'physical technology' in such contexts, compared with those prevailing in the developed countries. Therefore, when DC firms shift into a new domain, the organisational systems that they rely on often have to be created rather than simply selected. This may be because, as first-movers in their circumstances, even when they are informed by external sources, they have very little practical experience of carrying out similar actions successfully within their own contexts. Therefore, studying organisational building in their early phase could prove critical for understanding their capability building processes. Empirical studies of China‘s car-making and telecom-equipment sectors over the past three decades are taken to support theoretical exploration in this thesis. Some scholars (e.g. Bell and Pavitt, 1992) point out that, in DCs, the growth of production capacity does not automatically lead to the building of technological capability. The experiences of China‘s car-making and telecomequipment sectors are exactly in line with this point of view. From the mid 1980s, the Chinese government implemented a 'trading market for technology (TMFT)' policy, encouraging its backbone SOEs (State Owned Enterprises) to establish productive joint ventures (JVs) with MNCs (Multinational Corporations). By doing so, policy-makers expected backbone SOEs to undergo a bottom-up capability building trajectory via learning closely from their JV partners. We term these SOEs and their JVs the 'Group-A firms' in our research. Contrary to the expectations of policy-makers, Group-A firms were locked into the manufacturing segment even after twenty years of TMFT practices, and seldom had new systemic products developed indigenously, prior to 2005 at least. On the contrary, the indigenous advance of technological capability building has actually been led by some new entrants. Their development has been independent of the advocacy of TMFT. They relied on in-house developed products from the very beginning after entering the corresponding industries, and succeeded in building sustainable competitiveness. We term them the 'Group-B firms'. By comparing these Group-A and Group-B firms, we argue that there are distinctive differences in organisational learning systems between them. Four components are developed of the concept of organisational learning systems, i.e. the strategic intent, the authority over strategic resource allocation, the pattern of organisational mobilisation and learning integration, and the facilities and institutions for knowledge accumulation. For the latter three components, we succeed in generating a clear contrast between these two groups of firms. We undertake a thorough comparison of authority over strategic resource allocation by studying the constitution of their top committees. As for the patterns of learning mobilisation and organisational integration, we find distinct differences in the scope of knowledge communication of front-line engineers, and relevant institutional arrangements to mobilise, integrate and direct the content of communication. Regarding the facilities for knowledge accumulation and application, the study of their knowledge database building engenders a clear contrast, as well as the institutional arrangements to regulate and promote relevant activities within their organisations. We also discover significant connections between the organisational systems of Group-B firms and their processes of knowledge search, generation and accumulation. Three important mechanisms of new knowledge creation in Group-B firms are examined, namely learning through recruitment, learning through cooperative projects and learning through interaction with customers. Our empirical study reveals that the authority stressing the investment in new product and technology development, the cross-boundary inter-departmental platform of knowledge conversion, the comprehensive knowledge-accumulating facilities, and the institutions backing these components play fundamental roles in shaping these learning mechanisms. Therefore, the organisational differences of these two groups of firms are connected with the differences of these two subsets of firms‘ technological learning performances. Besides, we discuss the social roots of their organisational systems by historically revisiting China‘s industrial system. By doing so, for the research community that focuses on technological learning in DCs, this thesis advocates a shift of research from stressing assimilative processes of firms to giving more emphasis to organisational changes as a centrepiece of studies

Exploring the sources of China\u27s challenge to Japan : models of industrial organisation in the motorcycle industry

In view of the recent rise of China, this paper looks into one of the most important yet relatively overlooked ingredients of the Chinese success: industrial organisation. It will examine the case of the motorcycle industry, in which the rise of Chinese manufacturers even disrupted the established dominance of Japanese industry leaders. Adopting the modified version of the global value chain governance framework, this paper shows that the rise of China has been driven by a distinctive arm’s-length model of industrial organisation, which is in sharp contrast to the conventional captive model that has sustained the Japanese leadership

Impact of Payment Technology Innovations on the Traditional Financial Industry: A Focus on China

With the rapid advent of e-commerce in China, the technological innovation of third-party payment has experienced explosive growth. This important technological innovation, initiated by emerging Internet companies, is helping the traditional financial industry\u27s payment business-represented by commercial banks-expand in both depth and breadth. Meanwhile, there is also a large degree of substitution, competition and crowding out among these banks in terms of the traditional financial industry\u27s basic payment and settlement functions, potential customers, deposit and loan services and traditional intermediary business. This paper explores the impact (episodic and long-term steady-state) of the technological innovation of payment on commercial banks. It also considers the impact of technological innovation on industrial evolution to clarify whether technological innovation offsets the advantages of traditional industries or promotes industrial development. This study adopts the Vector Auto-Regression (VAR) impulse response model to analyze the impact of Internet Third-Party Payment (TPP) on the traditional financial industry from 2007 to 2014. The empirical results suggest that in China, third-party payments have had a significant positive correlation with the value creation capabilities of traditional financial industries, and that this relationship tends to remain in a steady state in the long term. Based on these findings, this paper confirms that the technological innovation of methods of payment in emerging economies, such as China, has promoted the development of the financial industry and accelerated the process of industrial evolution. We conclude the paper with feasible policy suggestions

Antecedents of Brand Equity: The Chinese Path to Building Brands A Case-study of GEELY and BYD Automotive Brands

Foy many years China was flagged as the world’s premier factory neglecting significant aspects such as brand equity. This study explores the antecedents of brand equity of Chinese brands. The main purpose of this study is to examine the evolution of Chinese brand equity and the impact of selective marketing mix elements and the Country of Origin as attributes preceding the creation of Chinese brand equity. A qualitative approach has been adopted in order to acquire an understanding of Chinese path to building brands. A case-study methodology was applied, with the unit of the analysis being two Chinese automotive brands: GEELY and BYD. The researcher proposes a conceptual framework in which brand differentiators composed of selective marketing mix elements and the COO (Antecedents) are related to the dimensions of brand equity; brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand associations. Throughout the course of study, five questions were explored. The results of the research confirmed that some of the Chinese companies are moving towards building strong brand equity with their steady steps in product quality, joint ventures and co-branding. The researcher also confirmed that Chinese Country of Origin is no longer an obstacle to building strong brand equity. Two research questions - geographical presence and perceived value - were not supported by the cases of GEELY and BYD and were not accepted as positively affecting the brand equity of Chinese brands during the course of the study. While some literature supports this direction, the two cases understudy failed to support them. The research affirmed that certain Chinese brands are on the rise and that the strategic focus of Chinese companies recognizes the fact that brand building is the path to sustainable competitive advantage. For the purpose of triangulation and control for reliability, the accepted questions were further investigated by an external researcher. Discussion, conclusion, recommendations, and future work will then be explored

India: A New Player in Asian Production Networks?, Studies in Trade and Investment 75

While the IPN phenomenon has accelerated trade and investment linkages between countries in East and South-East Asia, the remainder of the region has not matched those countries in this process. The objective of this study is to explore the reasons for this by using India’s performance in the Asian IPNs as a case study for other countries that are trailing behind in this area. The study seeks to identify the reasons why India has performed below its potential in this new form of international division of labour, even though that country possess several supportive factors including: (a) the sheer size of the economy and population; (b) a large pool of engineers; (c) relatively sound intellectual property protection; and (d) an increasingly open trade and investment climate resulting from progressive economic reforms.production network, fragmentation of production, Asia, value chain, India manufacturing sector, China, India, Offshoring, MNCs, FDI

Sustainable development of Chinese family businesses: a dynamic capability approach

Family business is one of the oldest and most common models of economic organization in human history. Whether in a manorial economy, farming society or a modern market economy, it always has a very strong vitality, evolves with the developing economy and society, and plays an important role in the economic development of a country or region. With the further expansion of economic globalization, Chinese family business will face a more intense competitive market environment with increasing uncertainty. In order to survive and develop, they must continue to carry out activities with independent innovation and entrepreneurship. Therefore, a basic and important problem is how can the Chinese family business keep its competitive advantage, and achieve sustainable development? Based on that, this study examines how social capital and dynamic capability affect the sustainable development of a family business, and how the core family transfer the social capital, and dynamic capability to the next generation. In this study, we have adopted the qualitative research approach. Overall, 17 cases were selected, covering 8 provinces of China. Using a qualitative case study approach consisting of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and analyzing the data with content analysis methodology, we conducted research that is designed to add to the existing theory on family firms' succession. Based on the social capital theory, this research constructs a development model from the dynamic capability perspective to help Chinese family business keep the competitive advantage, achieve a successful succession and achieve sustainable development. This thesis makes several substantive theoretical contributions to current Chinese family business studies, and has practical implications for business executives.Das muitas formas de empresas, a empresa familiar é um dos modelos mais antigos e mais comuns de organização econômica da história humana. Quer seja numa economia senhorial, numa sociedade agrícola ou numa economia de mercado moderna, tem sempre uma vitalidade muito forte, evolui com a economia e a sociedade em desenvolvimento e desempenha um papel importante no desenvolvimento económico de um país ou uma região. Com a expansão da globalização econômica, as empresas familiares chinesas enfrentarão um ambiente de mercado competitivo mais intenso, com crescente incerteza. Para sobreviver e se desenvolver, essas empresas devem continuar a realizar atividades com inovação e empreendedorismo independentes. Um problema básico e importante é, como as empresas familiares chinesas podem manter sua vantagem competitiva e atingir um desenvolvimento sustentável? Com base nisso, este estudo examina como o capital social e a capacidade de dinamização afetam o desenvolvimento sustentável de uma empresa familiar e como a família central transfere o capital social e a capacidade de dinamização para a próxima geração. Neste estudo, adotamos a abordagem de pesquisa qualitativa. No total, foram selecionados 17 casos, cobrindo 8 províncias da China. Utilizando uma abordagem qualitativa de estudo de casos, consistindo em entrevistas semi-estruturadas e aprofundadas e analisando os dados com a metodologia de análise de conteúdo, realizamos uma pesquisa que se destina a acrescentar à teoria existente sobre a sucessão de empresas familiares. Com base na teoria do capital social, esta pesquisa constrói um modelo de desenvolvimento a partir da perspectiva de capacidade de dinamização para ajudar as empresas familiares chinesas a manter a vantagem competitiva, alcançar uma sucessão bem-sucedida e alcançar o desenvolvimento sustentável. Esta tese faz várias contribuições teóricas substantivas para os estudos atuais de negócios familiar na China e tem implicações práticas para os executivos de negócios