Learning from foreign TNCs: a study of technology upgrading by local suppliers to AB Volvo in Asia and Latin America
by Inge Ivarsson, Claes Goran Alvstam
International Journal of Technology Management (IJTM), Vol. 48, No. 1, 2009

Abstract: Our data from local suppliers to AB Volvo's truck and bus-plants in Brazil, China, India and Mexico show that foreign TNCs contribute to technology-learning and improved adaptive technological capabilities, which help suppliers to expand businesses with domestic and international OEM-customers in many industries and markets. This support the evolutionary perspective that technology transfers from industrialised to developing economies are based on local inter-firm linkages arising from regular manufacturing activities of foreign TNCs. A policy lesson is that business-linkages with foreign TNCs with a low-volume demand for high-quality products can result in technology-upgrading among small local suppliers who make necessary learning-investments.

Online publication date: Fri, 10-Apr-2009

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