Public-Private Institutions, Innovation and Firm Upgrading in Developing Countries: A new approach to the study of networks, politics and institutions 

By Gerald A. McDermott,  Professor Department of International Business, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina & Senior Research Fellow, IAE Business School, Universidad Austral, Argentina.
 

How can emerging market countries accelerate the ability of their firms to innovate and thus compete in international markets in a sustainable fashion?  Much of the work on this issue focuses on two ways that domestic firms can learn and improve their dynamic capabilities – via their ties to MNCs as suppliers or via their ties to one another in local social clusters. This research shows how local firms need access to a variety of applied or experiential knowledge resources, not simply pioneering technology.  Secondly, it discusses how certain public-private institutions can act as vital social and knowledge bridges to facilitate the creation and dissemination of such knowledge.  These institutions, in turn, have the capacity to reshape the ties of old clusters and the relationships with MNCs.  This talk will focus on the unique research methods that capture the interactive effects of socio-economic networks, formal institutions and public policies.  The research design and the arguments have important implications for the study of the interaction between market and non-market actors, state and nonstate actors, as well as the comparative analysis of development.