The influence of value-chain governance on innovation performance: A study of Italian suppliers

Emanuele Brancati, Carlo Pietrobelli and Caio Torres Mazzi ()
Additional contact information
Caio Torres Mazzi: UNU-MERIT

No 2021-017, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: This paper explores how value-chain governance affects the innovation performance of suppliers of intermediate products. We take advantage of a unique dataset of Italian firms to identify governance regimes along suppliers' technological capabilities and the level of explicit coordination in the value chain. Our results indicate that 'modular' value-chain governance is more conducive to innovation for suppliers, especially when these firms have medium capability levels. Conversely, market-based governance modes appear to strongly reduce the innovativeness of suppliers with low capability. These patterns are also reflected in export performances and sales of innovative products. Our results go partially against other findings in the GVC literature, whereby relational value chains are seen to provide the most favourable environment to learn and innovate. Interestingly, the highest levels of technological capabilities consistently reduce the correlation between supplying intermediates and innovation performance, which indicates that technology-gap is an important mediator of learning within value chains.

Keywords: global value chains; export; suppliers; innovation; technological capabilities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 O30 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-ino, nep-int and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2021/wp2021-017.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Influence of value chain governance on innovation performance: A study of Italian suppliers (2024)
Working Paper: The Influence of Value-Chain Governance on Innovation Performance: A Study of Italian Suppliers (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2021017

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).