Impact of supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic to micro, small and medium enterprises in Davao Region, Philippines

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of supply chain disruptions on the operations and sales performance of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the adoption of “green” technology during the COVID-19 pandemic in Davao Region, Philippines. Design/methodology/approach A business impact survey was conducted among 113 MSMEs in Davao Region through the Regional Inclusive Innovation Center participated by the industry, government and the academe from October–December 2020. The impact of supply chain disruptions on the status of business operations was determined using ordered logit regression, while the impact on sales performance during the lockdown and new normal periods were modeled using logit regression. The technology upgrading plans of the MSMEs, including the adoption of “green” technology, were also determined. Findings This study found that the extent of disruption in processing the goods and services resulted in a negative impact on business operations, and the disruption of the availability of raw materials negatively affected the sales performance during the lockdown period. Moreover, around 20%–33% of MSMEs experiencing heavy supply chain disruptions had a plan to upgrade their business processes by adopting “green” technology. Research limitations/implications MSMEs need to establish strategic collaboration among the different stakeholders through public, private, non-government institutions and academe collaboration to enhance the capabilities of MSMEs in handling supply chain disruptions and pursuing technology upgrading. Originality/value This paper is among the early studies of the impact of COVID-19 to supply chains in the Philippines focusing on the MSMEs.

The Co-Evolution of Global Legitimation and Technology Upgrading: The Case of Huawei

This study explores the underlying relationship between acquisition of global legitimacy and the search for technology upgrading by Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs). Using Huawei’s investment in Russia, Kenya, the United Kingdom and Canada as an in-depth case study, we observe that through corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in foreign markets and engaging with local community, Chinese MNEs can acquire global legitimacy and gradually catch up with industry leaders. However, the process of global legitimation and innovation continues to evolve. We find that, together with engaging in CSR activities, acquisition of sophisticated knowledge and creation of innovation bring more legitimacy challenges to these firms. Thus, we suggest that Chinese MNEs’ global legitimation and innovation processes are closely coupled and mutually influential, resulting in co-evolution.

Technology upgrading and labor degrading? A sociological study of three robotized factories

In recent years, the technology-driven industrial upgrading in China has resulted in human labor being replaced with robots. This article explores the impact of "intelligent manufacturing" on workers from the following two perspectives: labor relations and the labor process. The authors argue that workers on the shopfloor are experiencing some forms of labor degradation due to robotization, i.e., more flexible labor relations, deskilling, and strengthened technical control. Such a corporation-led and machine-centered industrial upgrading is driven by state policy, capital, and the labor market.

Technology Upgrading and Economic Catch-Up

This chapter begins with a brief overview of the current literature on economic growth and innovation, and the process of technology upgrading. It defines the key concepts that will be used throughout the book and sets the stage for the challenges and issues around economic growth that will be addressed in later chapters. It then outlines the contribution of each chapter and the Schumpeterian or neo-Schumpeterian perspective in which they’re framed, and the four major themes that run throughout the book: the relationship between technology capability and economic growth from new methodological angles, including the middle-income trap; technology capability upgrading from structural, sectoral, and micro-level perspectives; the emerging paradigm of technology capability upgrading which is about sustainability, green growth, inclusiveness, and socio-economic and political determinants of technology capability building; and the several dimensions of innovation policy which reflect a state of transition or changing policy philosophies.

Technology Upgrading in Emerging Economies

The chapter applies a newly developed approach to technology upgrading to a sample of sixteen economies during 2002–16. The “Index of Technology Upgrading” is based on three complementary, but autonomous components that proxy for three different dimensions of the technology upgrading process: scale or intensity of technology activities (A); breadth or scope of technology upgrading activities (B); and interaction with the economy related to technology exchange (C). The results of our study reveal facets of the technology upgrading process and the relative positions of countries, which conventional mainstream approaches and composite indicators do not make evident. We conduct an econometric exercise, which shows that the index of technology upgrading contributes significantly to explaining changes in both total factor productivity and labor productivity, but that the index of technology exchange has no explanatory power. This latter result suggests that to contribute to increased productivity, openness to technology exchange needs to be complemented by domestic technology accumulation activities.

Technological Learning Strategies and Technology Upgrading Intensity in the Mining Industry

Despite extensive research on technology upgrading in firms from emerging economies, we know little about micro-level learning strategies underlying technological capability accumulation or technology upgrading intensity, particularly in natural resource-intensive industries. Through a study of Brazil’s mining industry we found that: (1) leading firms implemented technological learning strategies as responses to changing windows of opportunity; (2) these technological learning strategies manifested from imitative and defensive to the offensive, with elements overlapping during the technology upgrading process, involving two forms of knowledge: “doing, using and interacting” (DUI) and “science, technology and innovation” (STI), which were operationalized through various learning mechanisms; (3) the use of learning mechanisms changed qualitatively over time affecting firms’ technology upgrading intensity positively. We contribute to furthering the understanding of latecomer firms’ technology upgrading by providing in-depth empirical insights through a comprehensive approach to innovation capabilities and learning strategies in an under-researched natural resource-intensive industry in a middle-income resource-rich country.

Macro and Micro Foundations for Technology Upgrading and Innovation

Technological upgrading and innovation is necessary for long-term economic development. Nonetheless, creating the conditions that allow technological upgrading and innovation to occur is far from simple, especially for developing economies. While policymaking may create important macro- and meso-incentives for economic agents, it is at the micro-level that policy effectiveness can truly be verified. In this chapter we analyze the recent development of the Brazilian shipbuilding sector where an entire institutional setting was put in place to boost technological and industrial development. We investigate the policies and results by contrasting the macro-, the meso- and the micro-perspectives. Though policies put in place gave an initial boost to the sector, coordination uncertainties and critical bottlenecks at the micro-level generated high capability building costs that precipitated the subsequent failure of the shipbuilding industry to catch up and to upgrade sufficiently in order to really become internationally competitive.

Innovation Surveys as Evidence for Technological Upgrading and Catch-Up Studies

This chapter looks at the contribution to the innovation capability measurement that is made through innovation surveys. The increased availability of data at the firm level provides new and comprehensive indicators on the accumulation of innovation capabilities. Better understanding of long-term dynamics and the heterogeneity of sectoral trajectories of innovation capabilities sets the stage for adaptable and targeted innovation policy and facilitates new insights on the technology upgrading and economic catch-up mechanics. The chapter presents an approach to assessing innovation capabilities at the national and sectoral levels using composite indicators of output-based innovation modes and illustrates the proposed ideas using the data from the Russian innovation survey. The proposed indicators bring empirical evidence to the discussions of path dependence and gradual change in the technological upgrading studies. Identification of the heterogeneity of innovation capabilities at firm and industry level contributes to a more profound understanding of the upgrading dynamics and helps to draw implications for effective policymaking.

Experimentalist Governance for Technology Upgrading

The chapter extends the familiar Schumpeterian notion of creative destruction to the public-sector domain by asking a practical “how to” question: how policymakers can set priorities assuming that they have neither the panoramic view of the economy nor good capabilities to learn. The key notion is a trial-and-error policy process—with new experimentalist public programs and policies at the center—which shifts attention from one-time choice to incremental and continuous error-detection and correction of policy choices. Central governance procedure of such policy process is diagnostic monitoring which motivates stakeholders to learn by revealing both mistakes and new possibilities for action. Such problem-solving monitoring is contrasted with conventional (accounting) monitoring. Echoing the industry life-cycle literature, a policy life cycle of a new experimentalist program is introduced. A distinction is made between experimental policy process in the managerial sense (medium-term horizon) and in the evolutionary sense (long-term horizon).