Context Specificity And Industrial Catch-up Performance In Chinese Manufacturing

This dissertation addresses the issue of industrial technological catch-up in latecomer-countries. Great differences across industries in technological catch-up performance can be seen from the past experiences. To explore the reasons behind industrial performance differences in catching-up, technology learning and some industrial context factors like technological regime, market size and industry policy are proposed in previous research. However, little attention is paid to the characteristic features of technology decomposition and cooperation across organizations in the technology learning process of latecomer-firms. Besides, the context specificity of large emerging economics like China is ignored. This dissertation explores the joint influence of technology learning and some specific industrial context factors (industrial technology ladder, market ladder and ownership structure) on catch-up performance. Specifically, four researches are carried out.Research1is conducted to understand the technological learning mechanism of latecomer firms. By selecting a Chinese leading enterprise and world-class manufacturer in the air separator system industry as the research subject of our case study, we investigates in depth its technological catching-up process during1978-2008. in which the learning process is decoupled into two complementary processes as learning by decomposition and learning by recombination. Based on the typical mechanisms in learning by decomposition and recombination summarized with empirical evidence, we design the measurement of technology decomposition and technology recombination in both firm level and industry level.Given the important characteristics of distribution continuity in technology level and market level in developing countries, two concepts are respectively proposed as technology ladder and market ladder. Then, by using an industry-level panel data of Chinese manufacturing enterprises during the period of2001to2007, two empirical studies (research2and research3) are conducted to examine the effects of teclmology ladder and market ladder, and their interaction with tecology learning (technology decomposition and technology recombination) on catch-up performance. The empirical results show that (1) technology decomposition has no significant effect on catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves (their past performance). And technology recombination have a positive effect on catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves, but negatively related to catch-up performance relative to foreign-fund firms.(2)High distribution continuity in technology and market have a positive effect on catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves, but cannot improve catch-up performance relative to foreign-fund firms.(3) In industries with high distribution continuity in technology or market, the effect of technology decomposition conducted by firms in these industries is less positively related to catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves, and also cannot improve catch-up performance relative to foreign-fund firms.(4) In industries with high distribution continuity in technology or market, the effect of technology decomposition conducted by research institute in these industries is more positively related to catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves, but more negatively related to catch-up performance relative to foreign-fund firms.(5) In industries with high distribution continuity in technology or market, the effect of technology recombination is more positively related to catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves, and also can improve catch-up performance relative to foreign-fund firms.Research4is then conducted to examine the effect of industrial ownership structure and its interaction with technology decomposition and technology recombination on catch-up performance. The empirical results show that (1) high state ownership has no significant effect on catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves, and can improve catch-up performance relative to foreign-fund firms.(2) In industries with high state ownership, technology decomposition has no significant effect on catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves, but positively related to catch-up performance relative to foreign-fund firms.(3) In industries with high state ownership, technology recombination has a positive effect on catch-up performance relative to domestic firms themselves, but negatively related to catch-up performance relative to foreign-fund firms.This dissertation contributes to the previous literature on catching-up in the following ways.(1)A technological learning model for catching-up based on the perspective of technology decomposition and learning by recombination is proposed. It extends the absorptive capacity perspective for the context of technological catching-up in emerging economies, with an argument that latecomer firms can build up their absorptive capacity to effectively acquire and utilize external technology through externally accessible expertise other than internally possessed knowledge base, especially at the initial stage of technological catching-up.(2)The proposed concepts technology ladder and market ladder, which are empirically verified to have important effects on catch-up performance, expand the research perspective in the field of catching-up, especially the influencing factors on catch-up.(3)The interaction of technology ladder and market ladder with technology learning is found to have significant effects on catch-up performance, and thus deserve more attention in future research. Finally, policy implication and managerial implication are discussed.