Linked versus Non-linked Firms in Innovation: The Effects of Economies of Network in Agglomeration in East Asia

This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and network in developing economies to detect explicit production and information linkages and investigates the testable implications of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing firms in East Asia. We found that firms with more information linkages tend to innovate more, have a higher probability of introducing new goods, introducing new goods to new markets using new technologies, and finding new partners located in remote areas. We also found that firms that dispatched engineers to customers achieved more innovations than firms that did not. These findings support the hypothesis that production linkages and faceâ€toâ€face communication encourage product and process innovation.Southeast Asia, East Asia, Technological innovations, Network, Communication, Business enterprises, Engineer Mobility, Innovation, Linkages

Innovation in Linked and Non-linked Firms: Effects of Variety of Linkages in East Asia

This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and network in developing economies to detect explicit production and information linkages and investigates the testable implications of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing firms in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In-house R&D activities, internal resources, and linkages with local firms and foreign firms play a role in reducing the costs of product and process innovation and search costs for finding new suppliers and customers. We found that firms with more varieties of information linkages achieve more types of innovations. Complementarities between internal and external sources of knowledge are also found.- innovation, linkages, sources of knowledge, dissimilarity, complementarities

Innovation in Linked and Non-linked Firms: Effects of Variety of Linkages in East Asia

This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and networks in developing economies to detect explicit production and information linkages. It investigates the testable implications of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing firms in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In-house R&D activities, internal resources, and linkages with local and foreign firms play a role in reducing the costs of product-and process innovation, and the search costs of finding new suppliers and customers. We found that firms with more variety of information linkages achieve more types of innovation. Complementarities between internal and external sources of knowledge are also found.

Spatial Architecture of the Production Networks in Southeast Asia

The main purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the inter-firm production networks in Southeast Asian developing economies. Using firm-level data obtained from a questionnaire survey of manufacturing firms in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam in 2008, this paper presents the regional distribution of main customers and suppliers and their geographical proximity. Firm-level capabilities and transaction costs associated with specific inter-firm relationships would influence the distances between customers and suppliers. Ordered logistic estimations are carried out to examine factors affecting the spatial architecture of the production networks in the region.

Impacts of Incoming Knowledge on Product Innovation: Technology Transfer in Auto-related Industries in Developing Economies

This paper studies two questions on the role of networked sources of knowledge influential to product innovation. First: What is the extent of technology transferred through vertical linkages and public-private alliances, including university-industry linkages, in the phase of product improvement and development? Second: What types of knowledge are transferred from external technology sources? In a sample of ASEAN firms’ self-reported partner data restricted to automotive related industries, we found that direct linkages with MNC customers in foreign countries resulted in a lower propensity of product innovation. Indeed, incoming knowledge from MNC customers relating to the management of quality of existing products especially explained the lower propensity of product innovation. We also found that production linkages with MNC suppliers in foreign countries resulted in a higher propensity of product innovation. Incoming knowledge from MNC suppliers about quality controls explained a lower propensity of product innovation. These findings empirically indicate that networked sources of knowledge have a significant influence trade-off between maintaining existing operations and developing new products. The impacts of public-private alliances on innovation are sizable compared with the impacts of vertical linkages. Public-private alliances and vertical linkages offer knowledge with different effects on product innovation.

The Impacts of Face-to-face and Frequent Interactions on Innovation: Upstream-Downstream Relations

This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and networks in developing economies to identify explicit production and information linkages and investigates the testable hypotheses of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing firms in East Asia: Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. We found that firms that dispatched engineers to customers achieved more innovations than firms that did not. Just-in-time relationship is effective for dealing with process innovation. We found that such strong complementarities are not effective for product innovation. These findings support the hypothesis that face-to-face communication and strong complementarities among buyer-seller networks have different roles in product and process innovation.

Formation of supply chain collaboration and firm performance in the Thai automotive and electronics industries

This paper examines factors that encourage firms to go into supply chain collaborations (SCC) and relationships between SCC and supply chain performances (SCP), using a questionnaire survey on Thai automotive and electronics industries in 2012. OLS regression results show firms established supplier evaluation and audit system, system of rewards for high-performance supplier and long-term transactions with their supply chain partners under a competitive pressure are more closely cooperate with these partners on information sharing and decision synchronization. Instrumental variables regression indicates SCC arisen from competitive pressure, supplier evaluation and audit, a system of rewards for high-performance supplier and long-term relationship causally influence SCP such as on-time delivery, responsiveness to fast procurement, flexibility to customer need, and profit

Export-Led Growth and Geographic Distribution of the Poultry Meat Industry in Brazil

This paper includes an examination of the sustainability of recent high growth in the poultry meat industry in Brazil. In addition, an assessment is made of the impact of increased production of poultry meat products on the development of local industries. Comparative studies of leading companies in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil reveal competitive advantages in the low costs of feedstuff and labor as well as disadvantages in the scale of business and management efficiency in the Brazilian poultry sector. Increases in domestic and foreign demand for Brazilian poultry meat have promoted development of the Brazilian poultry sector in local areas. The formation of industrial clusters is observed using regional data related to the location of slaughterhouses and the number of chickens farmed. Statistical analyses support observations made in this paper

Trade obstacles, inventory level of inputs, and internationalization of enterprise activities : a comparison between Southeast Asia and Latin America

This paper investigates the impact of trade barriers such as customs clearance, subjective trade obstacles (customs and trade regulations), and inventory of inputs on the internationalization of enterprises in Southeast Asia and Latin America, using the World Bank\u27s enterprise surveys. Empirical results show a negative association between the internationalization of enterprises and subjective trade obstacles, while the impact of subjective trade obstacles is not significant on enterprises already internationalized. An international comparison between Southeast Asia and Latin America suggests that enterprises in Latin America face unfavorable conditions that discourage them from becoming more closely inserted into international production networks

Industrial Development and the Innovation System of the Ethanol Sector in Brazil

The purpose of this paper is to analyze innovations and the innovation system and its dynamics in the ethanol sector in the State of Sao Paulo. More specifically, this paper focuses on the development process in the sector, the public policies taken to promote the sector, and the organizations and key players involved in these policies and their responses to unforeseeable changes in economic, social and technological environments. To this end, this paper takes an historical perspective and reviews data on the cultivation of sugar cane, the production of ethanol, and on sugar cane yields as indicators of the innovations achieved in the sector. The geographical distribution of these indicators is also examined. Next, several cases in Piracicaba and Campinas in the State of Sao Paulo are presented; these give us a more concrete idea of the processes involved in innovation and technology transfer. Based on these observations, the ethanol cluster and the innovation system of the State of Sao Paulo are discussed from the viewpoint of the flowchart approach to industrial cluster policy