Abstract

Global value chains (GVC) offer opportunities and challenges for business developing in low income economies. The existing literature on GVC mainly focuses on two niches: governance and upgrading. The global buyers play as ‘lead firm’ in GVC context. However, the issues of upgrading activities at firm-level remain largely uncovered by the GVC literature. From the perspective of the literature on technological capabilities, this paper presents a framework to examine the levels of upgrading activities of producers in low income economies in the GVC quasi-governance structure.

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