The promotion of additive manufacturing (AM) as a set of enabling technologies has been a prominent feature of new policies seeking to revitalize manufacturing in developed economies. Because of its differences from traditional manufacturing technologies, small businesses, in particular, face high costs in adopting AM methods. How can governments assist small firms and their innovation ecosystems to make significant leaps in enabling technologies? This paper conceptualizes the challenges faced by groups of small enterprises adopting new technologies and a decentralized policy effort to systematically increase the use of advanced manufacturing technologies. In Canada, funding used by community colleges to create applied research centers has been intended to establish anchors for local “industrial commons” around advanced manufacturing methods. By providing both information and working capital to private sector partners, these community college programs should ideally mitigate challenges to the adoption of AM technologies—the so-called “valley of death”—in local ecosystems. There are many successful individual cases of partnership (i.e., private goods); however, this bottom-up approach seems to fail both as a means of promoting vibrant industrial commons (i.e., public goods) and as a coherent national strategy. We trace the challenges of this approach to principal-agent problems associated with layering new programs upon existing organizations, the density of program participants, and the presence of appropriate technologies.
The advent of ‘connected and automated vehicles’ (C/AV) is posing substantial transformation challenges for traditional automotive regions across the world. This article seeks to examine both conceptually and empirically how automotive regions reconfigure their industrial and support structures to promote new path development in the C/AV field. Drawing on recent conceptual advances at the intersection of evolutionary economic geography and innovation system studies, we develop an analytical framework that casts light on how regional preconditions provide platforms for asset modification that underpin different routes of transformation. We distinguish between a reorientation route and an upgrading route. The framework is applied to a comparative analysis of industrial path development and system reconfiguration towards C/AV in two automotive regions, namely Ontario (Canada) and the Austrian automotive triangle.
Regionally embedded foreign subsidiaries have an advantage over disembedded ones. The ability to draw on local knowledge networks to create differentiating capabilities can enhance the subsidiary's influence within the multinational enterprise. A subsidiary's power is shaped by its control over external resources or skills the parent company depends on to develop new products. These local relationships are then used to bargain for further mandates, sometimes in competition with sister subsidiaries. One way in which foreign subsidiaries can deepen their connections with the local context is by collaborating in their innovative efforts with university‐based collaborative research centers (CRCs). I argue that CRCs are not a panacea when it comes to embedding the subsidiaries of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs). A review of the literature helps identify the subsidiary‐parent relationship and industry‐academia conflicts of interest as obstacles to the development of productive relationships between subsidiaries and academia. I draw on evidence from three Ontario CRCs, with different scientific focus and stakeholders and analyze how these factors shape their behavior. The study shows that long‐term CRCs‐subsidiary relationships can be challenging to establish. This is because subsidiaries remain tightly controlled by their parent companies and cannot get access to the resources necessary to pursue ambitious innovation projects. It is also challenging for subsidiaries to form long‐term relationships with CRC researchers, who prioritize other goals such as training skilled personnel and continuing their research agenda. CRCs where 1) subsidiaries have a strong bargaining position within the MNE, and 2) academic expertise is aligned with industry needs have a greater chance to contribute to future MNE embeddedness.
Dans le sud de l'Ontario, où se trouve un pô le industriel automobile, des politiques permettent de soutenir de nombreux projets de recherche portant sur l'application de technologies habilitantes. Toutefois, ces projets ne répondent aux besoins que d'un faible pourcentage d'entreprises, les fournisseurs très novateurs, et ne touchent pas la base manufacturière traditionnelle. La situation est pourtant très différente dans d'autres pô les industriels automobiles, comme Detroit, au Michigan, les West Midlands, au Royaume-Uni, et le Bade-Wurtemberg, en Allemagne, où les projets de recherche appliquée concernent l'ensemble des entreprises de la chaîne d'approvisionnement. Dans cet article, nous avançons que l'Ontario doit tirer d'importantes leçons de ces nouvelles formes de coordination industrielle afin d'empêcher l'érosion des capacités d'innovation des entreprises de sa base manufacturière automobile traditionnelle.Mots clés : pô les industriels automobiles, recherche appliquée, coordination industrielle, politiques en matière d'automobiles Policies for the southern Ontario automotive cluster support multiple collaborative research projects designed for the application of enabling technologies. However, these initiatives cater to a small percentage of highly innovative automotive suppliers and exclude much of the traditional manufacturing base. This stands in contrast to automotive clusters in Detroit, MI; the West Midlands, United Kingdom; and Baden-Wü rttemberg, Germany, where applied research collaborations target the entire supply chain. With respect to policy implications, we argue that new forms of industrial coordination emerging in competitor regions may offer critical policy lessons for Ontario on how to stem the erosion of innovation capabilities in its automotive supply base.
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