Innovation and Upgrading in Global Production Networks

Capturing the Gains Working Paper 23

25 Pages Posted: 24 Mar 2013

See all articles by Dev Nathan

Dev Nathan

Institute for Human Development

Sandip Sarkar

Institute for Human Development

Date Written: February 2013

Abstract

This paper deals with the role of innovation in upgrading within global production networks (GPNs). Because of the distribution of production segments across firms and countries, there is also a distribution of production knowledge. The paper looks at some ways of upgrading by developing economy firms – the roles of distributed knowledge, reverse innovation and new types of innovation, based on frugal engineering in emerging economies. Process changes could also be innovation, though, unlike product innovations, they are easily copied and spread. The paper points out the limits of current reverse innovation and also asks whether the separation of manufacturing from design has increased the speed of innovation. Before concluding, the paper looks at innovation in terms of the ‘adjacent possible’ in evolutionary analysis.

Keywords: innovation, distributed knowledge, research location, reverse engineering, reverse innovation, frugal engineering, process innovation, adjacent possible

Suggested Citation

Nathan, Dev and Sarkar, Sandip, Innovation and Upgrading in Global Production Networks (February 2013). Capturing the Gains Working Paper 23, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2237493 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2237493

Dev Nathan (Contact Author)

Institute for Human Development ( email )

NIDM Building, IIPA Campus
Indraprastha Estate
New Delhi, 110002
India

Sandip Sarkar

Institute for Human Development ( email )

NIDM Building, IIPA Campus
Indraprastha Estate
New Delhi, 110002
India

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