Geographic clustering and outward foreign direct investment

This study addresses an important neglected question: To what extent do geographic clusters promote outward foreign direct investment (ODI)? We find evidence that clusters do promote ODI and so support Porter's argument that advantages gained in clusters can be the foundations of successful internationalisation. Digging deeper, we find that certain cluster incumbents promote more ODI than others, with more experienced firms and firms with stronger resource bases accounting for more ODI. We also find that firms located in clusters within major global nodes/cities engage in more ODI. Finally, we find that both localisation and urbanisation economies promote ODI. However, the former, within-industry effects, are more important. Overall, this study echoes Dunning's call for more focus on the ‘L’ component of the ownership, location, internalisation (OLI) paradigm and particularly on the advantages that reside in clusters that make them not only attractive destinations for foreign direct investment (FDI) but also fertile environments from which FDI can spring.     

The Evolution and Structure of Industrial Clusters in Japan

This paper focuses on two aspects of the evolution and structure of clusters in Japan, namely, what gives rise to clusters and what benefits are acquired by small firms from participating in clusters. The determinants of clustering are discussed by way of a review of the history of 14 industrial clusters which cover a wide range of industries and locations in Japan. It is noted that different factors dominate in different cases. Among the more important ones are the existence of leading large firms, the availability of a pooled labor market, and the presence of public research and testing facilities. The four most important benefits from clusters reported by small firms are : (i) specialization; (ii) ease of procurement; (iii) diffusion of technology, and (iv) public policy support. Access to skilled workers is not reported to be a significant benefit. This may be explained by the fact that the dominant source of skills acquisition among Japanese workers is on-the-job training and such skills may be too firm-specific to be useful to others, even within a geographically concentrated cluster.     

Is the Creation and Development of Biotech SMEs Localised? Conclusions Drawn from the French Case

The article examines the localisation effects within biotechnology, concentrating in particular on the French case. The paper has two strands of analysis. The first presents a detailed statistical survey of the French biotechnology sector. Among other things, the survey shows that a) localisation effects within France are strong, b) in terms of dependence on local cluster infrastructures (especially universities and related public research institutes), most firms progress from an entry stage in which they are very dependent on local cluster infrastructures, to a mature phase in which their networks become more national/international in focus and c) French firms can be grouped into four general types of firms, ranging from "type 1" growth oriented product firms, to "type 2" niche market players, "type 3" subsidiaries of larger firms, and "type 4" firms that have been acquired. Localisation effects differ across these firms, esp. across type 1 (international) and type 2 (very localised) firms. The second strand of analysis consists of a review of the localisation and related cluster literature, with implications drawn out for localisation and knowledge spillovers within biotech clusters. It examines the relative effects of scientific centres proximity and compares them to the public policy of start-up creation.     

Firm heterogeneity and technology transfers to local suppliers: Disentangling the effects of foreign ownership,technology gap and absorptive capacity

In this paper, I present novel microeconomic evidence on the effects of firm heterogeneity on the creation and impact of technology transfers from foreign direct investment (FDI) to local suppliers in a developing country setting. The main findings are threefold. First, FDI firms are significantly more involved in knowledge transfer activities than domestic producer firms. In particular, FDI firms offer more technological support, support with a direct positive impact on production processes of local suppliers. Second, the type of ownership also influences the effect of the technology gap on technology transfers. A large technology gap between a producer firm and its suppliers lowers the provision of support; however, FDI firms offer more technological support to their suppliers of material inputs when the technology gap is large. Independent of the support that the suppliers receive, foreign ownership of client firms and a large technology gap make it more likely that suppliers experience large positive impacts. Third, the level of absorptive capacity of local suppliers is also important for the impact of the technology transfers, confirming the notion that heterogeneity among both producer firms and local suppliers affect the level, nature and impact of local technology transfers.     

基于产业集群的浙商合作营销影响因素研究

当代浙商经营的企业绝大多数是建立在产业集群基础之上的中小型企业,受其规模和实力的限制,单靠一个企业的努力是很难提升其在全球竞争中的营销竞争力的,需要集群内浙商企业整合内外部营销资源,走合作营销的道路。文章通过相关理论的梳理和深入的实证分析,研究产业集群背景下影响浙商合作营销决策的内外因素,以期为浙商集群企业合作营销战略的实施、合作营销模式的选择提供理念、思路与方法。     

Policy-driven clusters,interfirm interactions and firm internationalisation: Some insights from Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor

This paper investigates the impact of social and business interactions on firm internationalisation within the context of an industrial cluster created from scratch by policymakers. Based on in-depth interviews with firms in Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor cluster, our findings suggest that a permanent cluster of this nature may not be able to stimulate the development of frequent, spontaneous, informal interaction and rich social networks often seen in ‘organic’ clusters, thus limiting the cluster's effect on firm internationalisation. However, the paper also shows that ‘temporary clusters’, such as trade shows and conferences, organised by policymakers on a regular basis within the broader context of the permanent cluster, can help firms to quickly acquire relevant knowledge.     

Exporting raises productivity in sub-Saharan African manufacturing firms

Proponents of trade liberalization argue that exporting helps firms to achieve higher productivity levels. This hypothesis is examined for a panel of manufacturing firms in nine African countries. The results indicate that exporters in these countries are more productive and, more importantly, exporters increase their productivity advantage after entry into the export market. While the first finding can be explained by selection-only the most productive firms engage in exporting-the latter cannot. The results are robust when unobserved productivity differences and self-selection into the export market are controlled for using different econometric methods. Scale economies are shown to be an important channel for the productivity advance. Credit constraints and contract enforcement problems prevent firms that only produce for the domestic market from fully exploiting scale economies.     

The role of clustering in the growth of new technology-based firms

This study analyses the relationship between clusters and the growth performance of new U.S. technology-based firms. It is argued that firms benefit because clustering provides access to specialized resources that cannot be developed internally. The empirical results indicate that distance from a cluster is negatively related to growth, but clustering has a greater positive impact on biotech firms. Proximity to a cluster within a diverse metropolitan area is associated with superior growth performance only for firms that rely heavily on broad, downstream supply chain effects (that is, for information and communications technology firms).     

知识密集型服务业集群内企业间知识转移影响因素——环同济建筑设计产业带的实证研究

在回顾国内外相关研究的基础上,构建知识转移的影响因素模型。然后,基于知识密集型的环同济设计产业集群的调研数据对上述理论模型进行实证研究。研究结果显示:企业间亲密的关系和企业浓厚的学习文化对知识密集型服务业企业之间的知识转移有重要的促进作用;企业较强的吸收能力、企业间较近的组织距离对产业集群内知识密集型服务业企业之间的知识转移有较大促进作用;知识的模糊性对知识密集型服务业集群内企业之间的知识转移有阻碍作用;中等的知识距离比较远的知识距离更有利于产业集群内知识密集型服务业企业之间的知识转移。     

The effect of clusters on the survival and performance of new firms

This paper contributes to the literatures on entrepreneurship and economic geography by investigating the effects of clusters on the survival and performance of new entrepreneurial firms where clusters are defined as regional agglomerations of related industries. We analyze firm-level data for all 4,397 Swedish firms started in the telecom and consumer electronics, financial services, information technology, medical equipment, and pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical sectors from 1993 to 2002. We find that that firms located in strong clusters create more jobs, higher tax payments, and higher wages to employees. These effects are consistent for absolute agglomeration measures (firm or employee counts), but weaker for relative agglomeration measures (location quotients). The strengths of the effects are found to vary depending on which geographical aggregation level is chosen for the agglomeration measure.     

Challenging the ‘Million Zeros’: The Importance of Imagination for Business Ethics Education

A recent preoccupation in scholarly research is the capacity of firms in developing country industrial clusters to comply with international corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and codes of conducts. This research is at an early stage and draws on several—often quite distinct—scholarly traditions. In this paper, we argue that future work in this area would benefit from a more explicit examination of the connection between cluster firms and human rights defined according to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent covenants and treaties. We argue that cluster firms’ adoption of CSR policies, often indiscriminately imposed by global buyers, should be differentiated from firms’ actual human rights practices. Based on this distinction, we elaborate a typology of industrial clusters (low-road, window-dressing, rights-oriented) and identify a set of factors likely to influence their practice. Against this background, we discuss an agenda for future research and elaborate on the potential methodological intricacies related to research on the interface between industrial clusters and human rights.     

Tradition Versus Change: Evaluating the Currency of Some Traditional Chinese Values in Today's Business Environment

Abstract

In the last decade, the discussion about how marketing is changing has focused largely on practices in more affluent industrialized economies. Far less attention has been given to understanding the marketing strategies and practices of firms in emerging and transition economies. In this paper, we compare marketing of multinational firms versus local firms in Argentina. We identify the environmental characteristics of Argentina's emerging economy and, using survey data of 96 firms, we group firms into five clusters. We refer to two clusters as “traditional/local” as they use very basic marketing methods, with one serving business markets and the other consumer markets. The other three clusters we refer to as “progressive” as they represent state-of-the-art practices. The first two of these are foreign-owned and serve consumer and business markets, the third represents locally-owned service firms. The managerial implications are examined.     

Economic and Social Upgrading in Global Value Chains and Industrial Clusters: Why Governance Matters

The burgeoning literature on global value chains (GVCs) has recast our understanding of how industrial clusters are shaped by their ties to the international economy, but within this context, the role played by corporate social responsibility (CSR) continues to evolve. New research in the past decade allows us to better understand how CSR is linked to industrial clusters and GVCs. With geographic production and trade patterns in many industries becoming concentrated in the global South, lead firms in GVCs have been under growing pressure to link economic and social upgrading in more integrated forms of CSR. This is leading to a confluence of “private governance” (corporate codes of conduct and monitoring), “social governance” (civil society pressure on business from labor organizations and non-governmental organizations), and “public governance” (government policies to support gains by labor groups and environmental activists). This new form of “synergistic governance” is illustrated with evidence from recent studies of GVCs and industrial clusters, as well as advances in theorizing about new patterns of governance in GVCs and clusters.     

The Role of Geographic Location in the Acquisition Strategies of High‐Technology Firms: Evidence from Computer Networking Equipment Industry

The present study focuses on the acquisition strategies of Cisco Systems, a comprehensible representative of high‐technology firms. This investigation has depicted a dynamic picture of acquisition behavior when the geographic location of targets varies. Analysis has revealed that high‐technology firms are more likely to acquire co‐located start‐ups. Our findings suggest that high‐technology firms are more likely to acquire targets who have received an earlier equity investment and whose technologies have been standardized. We have also found partial evidence that supports the argument that high‐technology firms pursue cluster‐based acquisitions. Analysis suggests that access to patents does not matter for start‐up companies located in industry clusters while their counterparts outside these clusters need patents to become acquisition targets. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Clusters,knowledge spillovers and new venture performance: An empirical examination

Firms in geographic regions with industry clustering have been hypothesized to possess performance advantages due to superior access to knowledge spillovers. Yet, no prior studies have directly examined the relationship between a firm's location within a cluster, knowledge spillovers and firm performance. In this study, we examine whether technological spillovers explain the performance of new ventures in cluster regions. We find that ventures located within geographic clusters absorb more knowledge from the local environment and have higher growth and innovation performance, but contrary to conventional wisdom, technological spillovers are not the contributing cause of higher performance observed for these firms.     

Collective Effects in Italian and Mexican Footwear Industrial Clusters

The focus of this article is on the analysis of the collective economic effects deriving from the intense set of backward, forward, labor, horizontal and institutional linkages existing within clusters of enterprises. Among the economic effects two main categories are distinguished: external economies, which are the spontaneous by-product of economic activities undertaken within the clusters and cooperation effects, which are the results of explicit and deliberate cooperative behaviors of the economic actors.In the empirical investigation, these economic effects have been analyzed in four clusters of footwear firms in Italy and Mexico. The first result of the empirical investigation is the confirmation of the importance of collective efficiency both in the proper Italian districts and in the Mexican clusters. Nevertheless, there are considerable differences concerning the intensity and quality of the collective effects between the realities studied. Those differences are explained through the impact of the disparities in the outside environment on the core characteristics of the different clusters. Finally, some considerations about the need for moving from a static to a dynamic approach to explain differences between stages of development and growth trajectory patterns of the districts are put forward.     

The global agglomeration of multinational firms

The explosion of multinational activities in recent decades is rapidly transforming the global landscape of industrial production. But are the emerging clusters of multinational production the rule or the exception? What drives the offshore agglomeration of multinational firms in comparison to the agglomeration of domestic firms? Using a unique worldwide plant-level dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for plants in over 100 countries, we construct a spatially continuous index of agglomeration and analyze the different patterns underlying the global economic geography of multinational and non-multinational firms. We present new stylized facts that suggest that the offshore clusters of multinationals are not a simple reflection of domestic industrial clusters. Agglomeration economies including technology diffusion and capital-good market externality play a more important role in the offshore agglomeration of multinationals than the agglomeration of domestic firms. These findings remain robust when we explore the process of agglomeration.     

The global agglomeration of multinational firms

The explosion of multinational activities in recent decades is rapidly transforming the global landscape of industrial production. But are the emerging clusters of multinational production the rule or the exception? What drives the offshore agglomeration of multinational firms in comparison to the agglomeration of domestic firms? Using a unique worldwide plant-level dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for plants in over 100 countries, we construct a spatially continuous index of agglomeration and analyze the different patterns underlying the global economic geography of multinational and non-multinational firms. We present new stylized facts that suggest that the offshore clusters of multinationals are not a simple reflection of domestic industrial clusters. Agglomeration economies including technology diffusion and capital-good market externality play a more important role in the offshore agglomeration of multinationals than the agglomeration of domestic firms. These findings remain robust when we explore the process of agglomeration.     

Social networks and marketing cooperation in entrepreneurial clusters: An international comparative study

This research examines factors that influence the development of marketing cooperation among cluster-based firms in different regions in the world. Theorists have consistently demonstrated the role and importance of economic externalities, such as knowledge spillovers, within industrial clusters. Less research attention has been paid to the investigation of marketing-based externalities, though it has been suggested that these may also accrue from geographical agglomeration. The study focus is on the development of joint marketing activities between firms operating in a single industry sector, located in close proximity. The results suggest that social networking is important in facilitating inter-firm cooperation in marketing activities. The study also explores whether the levels of inter-firm cooperation differs between countries with distinctly different levels of social collectivism. Interestingly, this study finds few significant differences in marketing cooperation among cluster-based firms from Scotland and Chile.     

The effect of investor origin on firm performance: Domestic and foreign direct investment in the United States

This paper evaluates the causal relationship between the source of origin of FDI and the performance of the target firm. The empirical analysis uses new data on a comprehensive sample of public U.S. firms that received FDI between 1979 and 2006. To account for the possibility that performance differences arise due to the selection of superior target firm rather than the change in ownership, I use propensity score matching to create similar comparison groups of target firms prior to acquisitions. The analysis reveals three major findings. First, acquiring firms from industrialized countries lead to labor productivity increases of 13% in the target firm three years after the acquisition compared to targets acquired by domestic firms. Firms that received developing country firm acquisitions, on the other hand, exhibit lower labor productivity gains four years after acquisition, compared to targets acquired by domestic firms. Second, targets receiving FDI by firms from industrial and developing countries also experience increases in profits, compared with firms receiving acquisition by domestic firms from the United States. Third, compared with domestic acquisitions, foreign industrial firm acquisition FDI tends to increase their targets' employment and sales, whereas targets acquired by firms located in developing countries experience a decrease in both revenues and total number of employees. These findings suggest that target firms are subject to significantly different restructuring processes depending on the origin of the acquiring firm.