High-tech products, innovation and competitiveness: the case of Mip-Teda in Tianjin (China, 1996-2012)

• Autores: Shuzhen Li
• Directores de la Tesis: Antònia Casellas Puigdemasa (codir. tes.), Montserrat Pallarès-Barberà (codir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2013
• Idioma: español
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Antoni F. Tulla i Pujol (presid.), Salvador Antón Clavé (secret.), Montserrat Pareja Eastaway (voc.)
• Materias:
  • Geografía
    • Geografía económica
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• Resumen

  • This dissertation analyzes the forces behind the transformation of MIP-TEDA, a Microelectronic Industrial Park in Tianjin, China. MIP-TEDA was a latecomer industrial region, which transformed from low labor cost, low value-added manufacturing to global high-value added electronic production harbor from 1996 to 2012. My methodology is based in questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews in the field trip, and descriptive statistical analysis. Global economy produced a profound transformation of the production organization in MIP-TEDA. Results provide insightful interpretations of how institutions and firms, local and international, played a dynamic and relevant role in the MIP-TEDA restructuring. Global Production Networks theoretical approach offer a framework for explaining why and how industrial upgrading is a multi-scalar process formed by complex interaction of forces embedded in the production networks. Factors such as intra- and extra- firm governance, local technology absorptive capability, spatial and institutional elements, and social and cultural circumstances define the specific scenario where a region would be successful or not. This dissertation further offers a typology of strategic coupling, as a critical explanatory approach to the Global Production Networks framework. Through strategic coupling in the networking production, technology and knowledge transfer from leading Transnational Corporations to local suppliers and partners, local industrial upgrading therefore achieved. In the last part this dissertation suggests some guidance for policy making strategies, mainly related to underlie the force of strategic coupling to empower knowledge to local firms; which could lead to local sustainable upgrading as a new and steady solution for improving regional competitiveness.