Suchergebnisse

AbstractAccess to knowledge and the opportunities and capacities needed to innovate are now key to competitiveness in a broad range of 'traditional' industries. With the emergence of 'new wave technologies', such as biotechnology, that are science based, research and patent intensive, strengthening the knowledge base and linking it to users is all the more critical. New international rules do not make this task any easier and for most developing countries technological divides and knowledge gaps have emerged in rapid succession as they struggle to deal with the challenges to which new wave technologies are giving rise. To avoid further exclusion, high priority must be given to the indigenisation of learning and innovation processes in the South. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper explores the changing nature of contemporary capital accumulation focusing in particular on the increasing importance of knowledge inputs in the production process. The growing knowledge-intensity of production reflected in the role of design, research and development, marketing, management and advertising in the growth strategy of the firm, has had numerous consequences for the nature of competition amongst firms and for the internationalization of production. As increased knowledge-intensity of production gave rise to ever more rapid technological change in industry, the need for greater flexibility in production and labour processes became acute, more so as the global economic crisis deepened and competition from newly industrializing countries rose.
Automation and sub-contracting were important new strategies. So too was the segmentation and delocalization of production processes to cheap labour countries in the Third World and Eastern Europe. More recently, as the costs and risks involved in R&D escalated, large corporations have also begun to decentralize knowledge production itself by funding research and development activities outside the MNC, and by internationalizing knowledge production itself through the establishment of research laboratories abroad or the implementation of a System of world product mandates for selected manufacturing subsidiaries.

In the metalworking and chemical industries of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, the ownership structure of firms, their product sector, and propensity to obtain technology through licensing are closely associated. Foreign firms cluster in industrial sectors with complex and volatile technologies, in which their technological advantages permit the exaction of monopoly rents. Ownership structure and product sector, as well as firm size, are related to the firm's decision to obtain technology by licensing rather than by generating it autonomously or obtaining it through other means. Ownership structure, product sector, and licensing appear to interact with choice of machinery imports and research and development activities in such a way as to produce a "technological dependence syndrome" in which opportunities for "learning by doing" are consistently missed.

After explaining the adoption of Decision 24 in terms of (a) the logical need to regulate direct foreign investment and technology transfer within regional integrative systems so as to create conditions necessary for the accomplishment of other integrative goals, and (b) the needs of an emergent national bourgeoisie within certain of the Andean countries. the paper demonstrates the extent to which the absence of social forces supportive of re gulation in all of the member countries led to attempts to modify Decision 24 and to divergencies in its implementation by national authorities. By checking the extent to which Decision 24 was applied at the national level the author is then able to examine the impact of Decision 24 on the rate of divestment, on the degree to which direct foreign investment and technology contracts were being subjected to review and renegotiation, and on the inflow of direct foreign investment into the region. In addition the paper presents the results of a survey of the attitudes of 90 managers of chemical and metalworking firms in Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador towards the regulation of direct foreign investment and technology transfer.

Post-World War II French colonial reforms, most notably those of the 1956 loi-cadre, began the process of decentralising political authority to the territorial components of the Fédération d'Afrique occidentale française (A.O.F.),1 and the Fédération d'Afrique equatoriale française (A.E.F.).2 By 1958 most of these French colonies had become autonomous Republics within the Communauté franco-africaine. Although only Guinea had opted for complete political independence in the Gaullist referendum held that year, pressures were clearly mounting in that direction for other members of the now defunct Federations.

Translated from the English by Françoise Marey.