‘Manufacturers without factories’ and economic development in the Global South: India’s pharmaceutical firms

Yves-Marie Rault-Chodankar and Dinar Kale

Journal of Economic Geography, 2023, vol. 23, issue 2, 319-341

Abstract: Global value chain/global production network studies have extensively documented the role of lead firms from the Global North in economic development in the Global South, including as ‘manufacturers without factories’ (MWFs). However, the role of local firms in sourcing from suppliers has been overlooked. In this article, we report the findings of a qualitative study and demonstrate that the local MWFs helped establish India as the leading supplier of pharmaceuticals worldwide and in the Global South. We show how the different types of local MWFs (‘propagandists’, ‘pioneers’, ‘connectors’ and ‘adaptors’) impact the strategic coupling, industrial upgrading and governance in South–South value chains and contribute to regional economic development.

Keywords: Economic Development; Production Networks; Value Chains; Manufacturers Without Factories; Global South; India; Pharmaceuticals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F23 F63 L23 L65 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeg/lbac013 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:oup:jecgeo:v:23:y:2023:i:2:p:319-341.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Geography is currently edited by Jorge De la Roca, Stephen Gibbons, Simona Iammarino, Amanda Ross and James Faulconbridge

More articles in Journal of Economic Geography from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().