The Diversity and Dynamics of Industrial Organisation: Transformation of Local Assemblers in the Vietnamese Motorcycle Industry

This paper focuses on an emerging arm's-length form of industrial organisation in the motorcycle industry, which had traditionally been characterised by tightly integrated form of organisation. By engaging in how this new form of organisation that emerged in China was transferred to Vietnam and evolved in the Vietnamese context, this paper seeks to illustrate how the rise of local firms in developing countries is driving the increased diversity and dynamics of industrial organisation in an industry that had previously been dominated by TNCs from developed countries.Motorcycles, industrial organisation, motorcycle industry, Asia, China, Vietnam

Capability Matrix : A Framework for Analyzing Capabilities in Value Chains

This paper develops a Capability Matrix for analyzing capabilities of developing country firms that participate in global and national value chains. This is a generic framework to capture firm-level knowledge accumulation in the context of global and local industrial constellations, by integrating key elements of the global value chain (GVC) and technological capabilities (TC) approaches. The framework can visually portray characteristics of firms’ capabilities, and highlight a relatively overlooked factor in the GVC approach: local firms’ endogenous learning efforts in varieties of relationship with lead firms.Developing Countries, Industrial Management, Business Enterprises, Capability Matrix, Capabilities, Value Chains, Lead Firms, Local Firms

The economic rise of China and the transformation of Vietnam's motorcycle industry

This submission consists of a collection of four papers. Each paper stands on its own and makes a specific contribution to knowledge. However, the four papers are also closely connected, each providing a building block for understanding how China’s economic rise has affected Vietnam’s industrial development. Taken together, these papers show that the conclusion reached on how China’s rise affects its neighbours depends fundamentally on understanding the changing dynamics over time. So as to unravel these dynamics, this collection focuses on the motorcycle industry and covers a period of a decade. At the beginning of that decade China’s economic rise seemed to be a disaster for Vietnam’s industrial development. By the end the decade, it turned out to have transformed Vietnam’s industrial development and production capabilities. At the heart of this intriguing dynamic is the competition between two models of industrial organisation. The first paper conceptualises the two contrasting models of industrial organisation that underlie the Japanese dominance and the Chinese catch-up in the Asian motorcycle industry. The second and third papers present the findings of the empirical research on Vietnam’s motorcycle industry covering a period of a decade. The second paper shows that China’s economic rise brought about repeated rounds of competition between the Japanese and Chinese models of industrial organisation attempting to gain supremacy in the third country market of Vietnam. The third paper shows that local component suppliers were able to build up considerable production capabilities in the course of the decade as the changes in industrial organisation created new learning opportunities for these suppliers. Drawing together the findings of the research, the fourth paper argues that the impact of China’s economic rise on the development of Vietnam’s motorcycle industry changed over a decade and that the changing impact can be explained in terms of successive changes in industrial organisation

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

The Japanese and Chinese models of industrial organisation : fighting for supremacy in the Vietnamese motorcycle industry

This paper explores the consequences of the emerging rivalry between Japanese and Chinese manufacturers. It focuses specifically on industrial organisation, one of the key factors that underlie the competitiveness of manufacturing industries. The question to be asked is what happens when distinctive models of industrial organisation, coming from Japan and China, clash in a developing country. An in-depth longitudinal analysis of the Vietnamese motorcycle industry adopting a modified version of the global value chain governance theory shows that a decade-long industrial transformation resulted in organisational diversity. The implications of the analysis for the literature on industrial organisation are discussed

How suppliers penetrate overseas market : internationalization of Chinese firms from the value chain perspective

This paper examines how Chinese firms serving the low-end domestic market internationalize into developing country markets abroad. It adopts a value-chain-focused approach to analyze the internationalization of Chinese firms into the Vietnamese motorcycle industry. The analysis shows that it was Chinese component suppliers rather than Chinese motorcycle manufacturers that successfully penetrated low-end market at the destination. Chinese suppliers did so by focusing on production-related expertise to provide key components to many locally-owned firms that undertook end-product assembly and distribution. The findings suggest that the research on the internationalization of Chinese firms needs to be embedded in the context of industrial organization in Chinese industries and its transformation

Value Chain Dynamics and Growth of Local Firms:The Case of Motorcycle Industry in Vietnam

Vietnam’s burgeoning market for motorcycles has attracted global industry eaders,players from developing countries, and local firms. This has led to a dynamic evolution of value chains. This paper presents an explanation of the varieties of the growth patterns xperienced by the local suppliers, focusing on the roles of customer and local supplier strategies. Case studies showed that while the role of customers may be important, strategies of suppliers to improve the ompetitive edge in the production of otorcycle components and to diversify into other products account for important ariations of growth trajectories among local suppliers. Findings presented in this paper suggest the need to direct more attention to strategy that local firms use to boost their competitive edge in business

The Diversity and Dynamics of Industrial Organisation: Transformation of Local Assemblers in the Vietnamese Motorcycle Industry

This paper focuses on an emerging arm\u27s-length form of industrial organisation in the motorcycle industry, which had traditionally been characterised by tightly integrated form of organisation. By engaging in how this new form of organisation that emerged in China was transferred to Vietnam and evolved in the Vietnamese context, this paper seeks to illustrate how the rise of local firms in developing countries is driving the increased diversity and dynamics of industrial organisation in an industry that had previously been dominated by TNCs from developed countries

Capability Matrix : A Framework for Analyzing Capabilities in Value Chains

This paper develops a Capability Matrix for analyzing capabilities of developingcountry firms that participate in global and national value chains. This is a genericframework to capture firm-level knowledge accumulation in the context of globaland local industrial constellations, by integrating key elements of the global valuechain (GVC) and technological capabilities (TC) approaches. The framework canvisually portray characteristics of firms’ capabilities, and highlight a relativelyoverlooked factor in the GVC approach: local firms’ endogenous learning efforts invarieties of relationship with lead firms