The Other Latecomers: How Latin American Firms are Changing the Playbook on Innovation?

In recent years, developing countries have seen the emergence of successful and innovative firms, albeit often with state support. Argentina, which faces challenges including industrial decline and macroeconomic turbulence, offers an intriguing context for studying latecomer firms, as few have managed to innovate and compete globally without significant state backing. This book examines why and how latecomer firms facing adverse policies and hostile macroeconomic conditions can nevertheless survive, grow, and catch up with global competitors, while many other firms lag or fall further behind. It presents, on one hand, a theoretical framework that builds on contributions made by Gerschenkron (1962) and Hobday (1995) on latecomer catch-up in economic development theory, and on those by Nelson (1991, 2008) on firm-level differences in evolutionary theory; on the other, it provides a contextual framework for the catching-up experiences of firms from East Asia and Latin America, which ends with a description of Argentina’s main detrimental policy regimes over the past 50 years. Further, the book presents an statistical analysis of manufacturing firms’ performance, along with the corporate characteristics that underlie it, within the context of Argentina’s worst economic crisis to determine which firm characteristics stood out during times of crisis (e.g. innovation and organizational capabilities). To supplement the quantitative analysis and offer additional insights, it introduces two in-depth case studies on iconic latecomer firms, TENARIS and IMPSA, which, bolstered by the examination of over nearly half a million newspaper articles, illustrate their global success amidst numerous challenges. It emphasizes the importance of long-term corporate strategy, a flexible organizational structure, and a coherent set of technological and organizational capabilities, while also addressing policy implications, making it a valuable asset for researchers, policymakers, and corporate managers alike. Foreword Foreword Acknowledgments Abbreviations Contents About the Author List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Theoretical and Contextual Frameworks 2.1 Theoretical Framework 2.1.1 Introduction 2.1.2 Latecomer Disadvantages (Macro-Level) 2.1.3 Firms ́ Differences and Catching up (Micro-Level) 2.2 Contextual Framework 2.2.1 The Latin American Context 2.2.2 The Argentine Context 2.2.3 The Capital Goods Industry Context (Some Brief Considerations) Chapter 3: Statistical Analysis of Latecomers ́ Innovations in Times of Crisis 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Some Preliminary Considerations 3.2.1 Innovations and Crises 3.2.2 Non-technological Innovations 3.3 Data Sources and Descriptive Statistics 3.4 Equation Specification 3.5 Methodological Approach 3.6 Econometric Analysis and Empirical Findings 3.7 Concluding Remarks Chapter 4: Case Studies of Two Latecomer Firms: Methodology 4.1 Design and Selection of Case Studies 4.2 Data Collection and Quality 4.3 Analysis of the Case Studies 4.4 Research Quality Tests Chapter 5: Case Study of TENARIS 5.1 TENARIS ́ Evolutionary Path to Catching Up 5.2 Coping with Latecomer Disadvantages in Argentina 5.2.1 Distant Global Markets 5.2.2 Technological Backwardness 5.2.3 Adverse Macroeconomy 5.2.4 Entrepreneurship and Corporate Incoherence 5.3 Concluding Remarks Chapter 6: Case Study of IMPSA 6.1 IMPSA ́s Evolutionary Path to Catching Up 6.2 Coping with Latecomer Disadvantages (Macro-Level) Through Firm Characteristics (Micro-Level) 6.2.1 Distant Global Markets 6.2.1.1 Corporate Strategy 6.2.1.2 Organizational Structure 6.2.1.3 Core Capabilities 6.2.2 Technological Backwardness 6.2.2.1 Corporate Strategy 6.2.2.2 Organizational Structure 6.2.2.3 Core Capabilities 6.2.3 Adverse Macroeconomy 6.2.3.1 Corporate Strategy 6.2.3.2 Organizational Structure 6.2.3.3 Core Capabilities 6.2.4 Entrepreneurship and Corporate Incoherence 6.2.4.1 Corporate Strategy 6.2.4.2 Organizational Structure 6.2.4.3 Core Capabilities 6.3 Concluding Remarks Chapter 7: Conclusions and Implications 7.1 Summary of Concluding Remarks 7.1.1 Statistical Analysis of Latecomers ́ Innovations in Time of Crisis (Chap. 3) 7.1.2 Case Study of TENARIS (Chap. 5) 7.1.3 Case Study of IMPSA (Chap. 6) 7.2 Comparing the Two Case Studies 7.3 Research Questions and Conclusions 7.4 Implications 7.4.1 Theoretical Implications 7.4.2 Methodological Implications 7.4.3 Implications for Corporate Strategy and Policy Technical Appendix The Instrumental Variable (IV) Approach Application of the IV Approach to the Model in Chap. 3 References