Outward Foreign Direct Investment from India: Recent Trends and Patterns

This paper provides an overview of the changing patterns of OFDI from India over 1975-2001. It shows that the increasing number of Indian TNCs during 1990s has been accompanied by a number of changes in the character of such investment. These, notably include overwhelming tendency of Indian outward investors to have full or majority ownership, expansion into new industries and service sector, and the emergence of developed country as the most important host region for trans-border activity.Outward Foreign Direct Investment

Regional heterogeneity and firms’ innovation: the role of regional factors in industrial R&D in India

This study makes an early attempt to estimate the magnitude and intensity of manufacturing firms’ R&D by Indian states during the period 1991‒2008 and analyses the role of regional factors on firm-level R&D activities. As there is little research on state-wise R&D performance of firms in India, this study serves an important contribution to the academic and policy realm. It has brought out the fact the total manufacturing R&D investment in India is unevenly distributed regionally with a few states accounting for disproportionate share of it. Regional heterogeneity or inter-state disparities in R&D has increased between the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century. In view of this persistent regional heterogeneity in R&D, the study has developed and estimated an empirical model for a sample of 4545 Indian manufacturing firms with R&D facilities located in single state and that explicitly includes regional factors as probable factors affecting R&D. The three-step Censored Quantitle Regression results confirm that regional factors play an important role in shaping the R&D intensity of the sample of firms. This led us to some useful policy suggestions for regional governments to promote local firms’ R&D activities.Regional heterogeneity, R&D, manufacturing firms, Indian states, censored quantitle regression.

Liberalization, Firm Size and R&D performance: A Firm Level Study of Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

In the present paper, it is attempted to empirically verify the impact of economic liberalization on the R&D behaviour of Indian pharmaceutical firms controlling for the effects of several firm specific characteristics including firm size. The results from the Tobit analysis for a sample of firms over the period 1989-90 to 2000-01 indicate that competitive pressure generated by liberalization has worked effectively in pushing Indian pharmaceutical firms into R&D activity. A host of firm characteristics like firm age, size, profitability, intangible assets, export orientation and outward foreign direct investment are also found to be important determinants of innovative activity in the industry. The study suggests several policy measures to further indigenous technological efforts of pharmaceutical firms, which include, removing obstacles that inhibit outward orientation of firms, providing special scheme for small size firms in the overall technology policy for the industry, intensifying collaborative research efforts between private sectors and government research institution, and utilizing flexibilities in the TRIMs agreements to persuade foreign firms to relocate their R&D units into the country.Indian Pharmaceutical Industry; R&D

Emerging Multinationals: A Comparison of Chinese and Indian Outward Foreign Direct Investment

The present study deals with the origin and growth of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by emerging Chinese and Indian multinationals and examines the locational determinants of such investments. Both Chinese and Indian OFDI flows were observed to have surged after the adoption of economic openness policies by the home country in the late 1970s and the 1990s respectively and are now increasingly being driven by wholly-owned projects and acquisitions abroad. Indian and Chinese firms both started OFDI operations in developing countries and then they expanded into developed regions in the 1990s. Among locational factors, both Chinese and Indian OFDI projects are attracted by host country imports from the sources, greater strength of host currencies, rising host prices and host status of being offshore financial centres. While the Chinese multinationals were found to have preference for hosts with locational proximity, small size and high natural resource endowments, the Indian firms appear to choose countries with large size and that have bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with India irrespective of their physical distance from India.- emerging multinationals, outward FDI, China, India

Emerging Multinationals from India and China: Origin, Impetus and Growth

This study deals with the outward FDI (OFDI) behaviours of the emerging multinationals from India and China. In the backdrop of changing public policies and economic performance of the home country, it traces the evolution of OFDI by these emerging multinationals over a long period, from early 1950s to the present decade. Indian and Chinese multinationals, in addition to their similarity of achieving high growth rates of OFDI with long term sectoral and geographical diversification, are observed to have a number of important differences in terms of characteristics of outward investing firms and their locational motivations.Outward FDI, Emerging multinationals, India, China

Overcoming Innovation Limits through Outward FDI: The Overseas Acquisition Strategy of Indian Pharmaceutical Firms

A host of strategic government policies including a process patent regime led to the rise of Indian pharmaceutical firms with significant process development capabilities. With policies getting liberalized overtime and a product patent regime in place, now firms’ survival crucially depends on their abilities to develop new products and brand creating exercise. Indian pharmaceutical firms with their inadequate product development capabilities are clearly at serious risk. In this context, an increasing number of Indian pharmaceutical firms are observed to be using acquisition as a strategy to overcome their limited innovation strength by accessing new products and their technologies, skills and new markets. Overseas acquisitions represent both challenges and opportunities for Indian pharmaceutical firms aspiring to emerge as global entities based on advance technologies.Indian pharmaceutical industry; Outward FDI; Overseas Acquisition

R&D Strategy of Small and Medium Enterprises in India

The liberalization of economic policies in the last two decades and intensifying market competition tend to be a cause of policy concern for the survival of SMEs in emerging economies like India. These SMEs account for the largest chunk of industrial units and employment in the national economy. Yet, most of them are competing with deeply inadequate resources, especially by means of weak technological capabilities. The present study has provided not only preliminary estimates on SME R&D investments in Indian manufacturing and their broad trends and patterns, but also contributed to the understanding of factors driving the SME in-house R&D activities. It shows that Indian SMEs continue to be vulnerable among all firms as they have the lowest incidence of doing in-house R&D and their R&D intensities have fallen in the last decade. Based on the results from three-step Censored Quantile Regression, this study has suggested a set of useful policy implications for enhancing SME R&D.SMEs; R&D; Business Groups; Foreign Firms.

How Do Trade, Foreign Investment, and Technology Affect Employment Patterns in Organized Indian Manufacturing?

The present study investigates into the impact of trade, foreign investment, and technology on three different employment patterns in India’s organized manufacturing sector. These employment patterns cover three disadvantage categories of workers viz., women vis-à-vis men workers, contract vis-à-vis regular workers and unskilled vis-à-vis skilled workers. A conceptual and empirical framework has been developed linking these employment patterns to trade, foreign investment, and technology, and tested for a sample of Indian industries. The research suggests that trade has been employment promoting for women and unskilled workers while it has remain neutral between contract and regular workers. The impact of foreign investment has been observed to be negative for contract and unskilled workers. The overall impact of technology encompassing in-house R&D, foreign technology imports, and capital-intensity has been mostly negative for women and unskilled workers but positive for contract workers.Employment Patterns; Trade; Foreign Investment; Technology

Firm Performance during Global Economic Slowdown: A View from India

This study has analyzed the relative growth performance of Indian firms under the current economic slowdown and explored factors helping certain Indian companies to do relatively better even in this crisis period. It has been observed that the overall growth and stability of the global economy has become extremely important for the growth performance of Indian firms. In fact, sales and profitability growth of some 450 Indian manufacturing and IT firms were significantly reversed with the condition of global market turning adverse since late 2008. It is interesting that those Indian firms were relatively young in age and more focused on global market have been better off in terms of sales and profit growth than other firms. Also large firms and those having higher advertising intensities have enjoyed higher profit growth in this period. The concern for policy markers is that Indian companies have significantly reduced their technological activities due to falling sales and profit growth under the slowdown, besides their slashing of resource allocation for advertising and labour.Economic Slowdown; Firm Growth; India.

R&D strategy of small and medium enterprises in India: Trends and determinants

The liberalization of economic policies in the last two decades and intensifying market competition tend to be a cause of policy concern for the survival of SMEs in emerging economies like India as these firms accounts for the largest chunk of industrial units and employment. Given their limited financial and intangible resources, the promotion of R&D among SMEs has become a very important policy parameter. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature on Indian R&D by analyzing the trends and patterns of R&D investment by Indian manufacturing SMEs during the period 1991−2008 and exploring various factors that determine their R&D behaviour. The results show that Indian SMEs have lowest incidence of doing in-house R&D and their R&D intensities have fallen in the last decade. A number of factors that play important role in determining SME R&D have been identified based on the three steps Censored Quantile Regression and some useful policy implications are suggested for enhancing R&D activities of small firms.SMEs; R&D; Business Groups; Foreign Firms