Skip Navigation


Cambridge Journal of Economics Advance Access originally published online on August 13, 2007
Cambridge Journal of Economics 2008 32(1):29-47; doi:10.1093/cje/bem016
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
32/1/29    most recent
bem016v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Nolan, P.
Right arrow Articles by Liu, C.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.

The global business revolution, the cascade effect, and the challenge for firms from developing countries

Peter Nolan, Jin Zhang and Chunhang Liu*

* University of Cambridge, UK; University of Cambridge, UK; and China Industrial Development Research Center, Beijing

Address for correspondence: Dr Jin Zhang, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1AG, UK; email: j.zhang{at}jbs.cam.ac.uk

The global business revolution since the 1980s has witnessed an unprecedented degree of industrial consolidation and concentration of business power at a global level. Firms with powerful, globally recognised technologies and/or brands constitute the ‘systems integrators’ at the apex of extended supply chains. This paper examines the supply chains in four different sectors: aerospace, telecommunications, automobiles and beverages. It finds that these sectors have striking similarities in the way in which the core systems integrators have stimulated industrial concentration across the whole supply chain. This ‘cascade effect’ has profound implications for firms from developing countries in catching up at the firm level.

Key Words: Global business revolution • Industrial consolidation • Cascade effect • Value chain • Catch-up

JEL classifications: F02, L00, M00, O00, O03, 049

Manuscript received March 27, 2006; final version received February 23, 2007.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.