IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/18553.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Technological learning in six firms in Southern China: success and limits of an industrialisation model

Author

Listed:
  • Arvanitis, Rigas
  • Zhao, Wei
  • Qiu, Haixiong
  • Xu, Jian-niu

Abstract

This article examines the creation of industrial enterprises and the basic models of firm-level technological learning behaviour of the last 20 years in China. Six case studies of technological learning and links to external sources of know-how from the South of China in the Pearl River Delta are examined. It is shown that the learning process that has been experienced in these enterprises is similar to that of other fast growing East Asian economies. Until now enterprises have been acquiring technology through external linkages with foreign clients that become their main providers of technology. A detailed account of the enterprises allows a typology of the external technological learning. It is claimed that the growth of the South China lies in this ‘external’ interactive technological learning, as in other East Asian economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Arvanitis, Rigas & Zhao, Wei & Qiu, Haixiong & Xu, Jian-niu, 2006. "Technological learning in six firms in Southern China: success and limits of an industrialisation model," MPRA Paper 18553, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2006.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:18553
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/18553/1/MPRA_paper_18553.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xie, Wei & Wu, Guisheng, 2003. "Differences between learning processes in small tigers and large dragons: Learning processes of two color TV (CTV) firms within China," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1463-1479, September.
    2. Kim, Linsu, 2000. "The Dynamics of Technological Learning in Industrialisation," UNU-INTECH Discussion Paper Series 2000-07, United Nations University - INTECH.
    3. Michael Hobday, 1995. "Innovation In East Asia," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 226.
    4. Can Huang & Celeste Amorim & Joaquim Borges Gouveia & Mark Spinoglio & Augusto Medina, 2004. "Organization, Program and Structure: An Analysis of the Chinese Innovation Policy Framework," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 17, Departamento de Economia, Gestão e Engenharia Industrial, Universidade de Aveiro.
    5. Shi, Yizheng, 2001. "Technological capabilities and international production strategy of firms: the case of foreign direct investment in China," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 184-204, July.
    6. Ernst, Dieter & Kim, Linsu, 2002. "Global production networks, knowledge diffusion, and local capability formation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8-9), pages 1417-1429, December.
    7. Arvanitis, Rigas & Miège, Pierre & Zhao, Wei, 2003. "Regard(s) sur l'émergence d'une économie de marché en Chine [A Fresh Look at the Development of a Market Economy in China]," MPRA Paper 8635, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Liu, Xielin & White, Steven, 2001. "Comparing innovation systems: a framework and application to China's transitional context," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1091-1114, August.
    9. Lemoine, Francoise & Unal-Kesenci, Deniz, 2004. "Assembly Trade and Technology Transfer: The Case of China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 829-850, May.
    10. Chen, Cheng-Fen & Sewell, Graham, 1996. "Strategies for technological development in South Korea and Taiwan: the case of semiconductors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 759-783, August.
    11. Kleinknecht, Alfred & Reijnen, Jeroen O. N., 1991. "More evidence on the undercounting of small firm R&D," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 579-587, December.
    12. Pirela, Arnoldo & Rengifo, Rafael & Mercado, Alexis & Arvanitis, Rigas, 1993. "Technological learning and entrepreneurial behaviour: A taxonomy of the chemical industry in Venezuela," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(5-6), pages 431-453, November.
    13. Figueiredo, Paulo N., 2002. "Does technological learning pay off? Inter-firm differences in technological capability-accumulation paths and operational performance improvement," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 73-94, January.
    14. White, Steven & Liu, Xielin, 1998. "Organizational processes to meet new performance criteria: Chinese pharmaceutical firms in transition," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 369-383, August.
    15. Gereffi, Gary, 1999. "International trade and industrial upgrading in the apparel commodity chain," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-70, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arvanitis, Rigas & Mhenni, Hatem, 2008. "Innovation policies in the context of North-Africa: new trends in Morroco and Tunisia," MPRA Paper 17939, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Wei ZHAO & Rigas ARVANITIS, 2008. "L’INeGAL DeVELOPPEMENT INDUSTRIEL DE LA CHINE : CAPACITeS D’INNOVATION ET COEXISTENCE DE DIFFeRENTS MODES D’APPRENTISSAGE TECHNOLOGIQUE," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 28, pages 61-85.
    3. Tzeng, Cheng-Hua, 2010. "Managing innovation for economic development in greater China: The origins of Hsinchu and Zhongguancun," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 110-121.
    4. Arvanitis, Rigas & M'HENNI, Hatem & Tsipouri, Lena, 2009. "Y a-t-il une gouvernance des systèmes d’innovation dans les pays d’Afrique du Nord et du Moyen-Orient? [Is there any NSI governance in MENA region]," MPRA Paper 27539, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Balcet Giovanni & Ruet Joël, 2011. "From Joint Ventures to National Champions or Global Players? Alliances and Technological Catching-up in Chinese and Indian Automotive Industries," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201109, University of Turin.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Torres-Fuchslocher, Carlos, 2010. "Understanding the development of technology-intensive suppliers in resource-based developing economies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 268-277, March.
    2. Wei ZHAO & Rigas ARVANITIS, 2008. "L’INeGAL DeVELOPPEMENT INDUSTRIEL DE LA CHINE : CAPACITeS D’INNOVATION ET COEXISTENCE DE DIFFeRENTS MODES D’APPRENTISSAGE TECHNOLOGIQUE," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 28, pages 61-85.
    3. Liu, John Jen-wei & Ray, Pradeep Kanta, 2012. "The ‘Triple-alliance’ perspective for new industry creation: Lessons from the flat panel industry in Taiwan," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 585-599.
    4. Hansen, Ulrich Elmer & Lema, Rasmus, 2019. "The co-evolution of learning mechanisms and technological capabilities: Lessons from energy technologies in emerging economies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 241-257.
    5. Kale, Dinar, 2019. "From small molecule generics to biosimilars: Technological upgrading and patterns of distinctive learning processes in the Indian pharmaceutical industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 370-383.
    6. He, Xiyou & Mu, Qing, 2012. "How Chinese firms learn technology from transnational corporations: A comparison of the telecommunication and automobile industries," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 270-287.
    7. Liena Kano & Eric W. K. Tsang & Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 2020. "Global value chains: A review of the multi-disciplinary literature," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 51(4), pages 577-622, June.
    8. Tang, Mingfeng & Hussler, Caroline, 2011. "Betting on indigenous innovation or relying on FDI: The Chinese strategy for catching-up," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 23-35.
    9. Yoruk, Deniz E., 2019. "Dynamics of firm-level upgrading and the role of learning in networks in emerging markets," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 341-369.
    10. Marina Papanastassiou & Robert Pearce & Antonello Zanfei, 2020. "Changing perspectives on the internationalization of R&D and innovation by multinational enterprises: A review of the literature," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 51(4), pages 623-664, June.
    11. Ingo Liefner & Yehua Dennis Wei & Gang Zeng, 2013. "The Innovativeness and Heterogeneity of Foreign-Invested High-Tech Companies in Shanghai," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 522-549, September.
    12. Islam, Mohammad Tarikul & Polonsky, Michael Jay, 2020. "Validating scales for economic upgrading in global value chains and assessing the impact of upgrading on supplier firms’ performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 144-159.
    13. repec:ilo:ilowps:369852 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. J H Chen & T S Jan, 2005. "A system dynamics model of the semiconductor industry development in Taiwan," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(10), pages 1141-1150, October.
    15. Lall, Sanjaya & Albaladejo, Manuel, 2004. "China's Competitive Performance: A Threat to East Asian Manufactured Exports?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1441-1466, September.
    16. William Latham & Christian Le Bas & Dmitry Volodin, 2012. "Mobility, Productivity and Patent Value for Asian Prolific Inventors : China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, 1975 - 2010," Working Papers halshs-00734980, HAL.
    17. Dutta, Sourish, 2017. "Mechanics of Global Value Chains: India's Perspective," MPRA Paper 108482, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Jan van der Borg & Erwin van Tuijl, 2011. "Upgrading of Symbolic and Synthetic Knowledge Bases: Analysis of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry and the Automotive Industry in China," Working Papers 2011_25, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    19. Lema, Rasmus & Quadros, Ruy & Schmitz, Hubert, 2015. "Reorganising global value chains and building innovation capabilities in Brazil and India," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1376-1386.
    20. Contreras, Oscar F. & Carrillo, Jorge & Alonso, Jorge, 2012. "Local Entrepreneurship within Global Value Chains: A Case Study in the Mexican Automotive Industry," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 1013-1023.
    21. Suder, Gabriele & Liesch, Peter W. & Inomata, Satoshi & Mihailova, Irina & Meng, Bo, 2015. "The evolving geography of production hubs and regional value chains across East Asia: Trade in value-added," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 404-416.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asia; China; industrial development; technological learning; private enterprises; interactive learning; economic reform;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:18553. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.