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Industrial Upgrading from Below: Can Chinese Local Manufacturing Firms Reconfigure Global Value Chains?

In: China’s New Development Strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Zhao

    (ESSCA School of Management
    Sun Yat-Sen University
    Université Paris 13)

Abstract

Chinese local manufacturing firms are mostly suppliers positioned in the midstream of global value chains (GVC). Although their dominant mode of industrial upgrading is path-dependent sustaining the existing governance structure of GVC, some leading firms with accumulated experience and technological know-how adopt more radical strategy which can configure or reconfigure the whole chain structure, by diversifying to related sectors, developing upstream technologies, and even creating new industries. Based on analysis of three sectors—LED lights, mobile terminals, and new energy vehicle batteries—in Huizhou City, a region of manufacturing clusters in South China, we identify the upgrading pathways of local firms via technological and non-technological efforts over time and highlight the value-chain-reconfiguring tendency of upgrading when local firms explore emerging sectors from below. This kind of sector-shaping upgrading practice by firms gets support from national and local development policies and can profoundly change the structure of China’s production networks and GVCs.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Zhao, 2022. "Industrial Upgrading from Below: Can Chinese Local Manufacturing Firms Reconfigure Global Value Chains?," Springer Books, in: Gary Gereffi & Penny Bamber & Karina Fernandez-Stark (ed.), China’s New Development Strategies, pages 167-194, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-19-3008-9_7
    DOI: 10.1007/978-981-19-3008-9_7
    as

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