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Begin New Search Publishing Institution Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy Author Martin Kenney

11. Building Venture Capital Industries: Understanding the U.S. and Israeli Experience

Author:
Martin Kenney, Gil Avnimelech, and Morris Teubal
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
During the growth phase of every venture capita (VC) business cycle, it seems as though both local and national governments in various countries initiate policies aimed at establishing VC industries as part of a high-technology economic development strategy. It is remarkable how each time there seems to be a proliferation of ill-advised policies that are usually reminiscent of the ones tried during the previous phase. Not surprisingly, in a distressingly large number of cases, the “new” policies to foster VC meet with minimal success or fail outright. While the causes of failure are undoubtedly multiple, there is ample room for believing that often the policies were based on a simplistic or incomplete understanding of the roots and dynamics that have led to the development of self-sustaining national VC industries. This paper uses historically informed case studies of Israel and the U.S. to develop an appreciative model of how the VC industries in these two nations came into being. Our model and understanding of this process is deliberately evolutionary and systemic. We believe that this perspective is the only one capable of providing both scholars and policy-makers with a grounded understanding of the emergence and development of the VC industries in these two nations.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Israel

12. Innovation and Social Capital in Silicon Valley

Author:
Martin Kenney and Donald Patton
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The high cost regions of Europe, North America, and Japan recognize that the key to their economic vitality is innovation. Increasingly, many also accept that the primary units of competition based on high quality, innovative products are not nations, but firms within regions, some of which occasionally bridge national boundaries. This has resulted in a significant increase in interest in the nature and functioning of such regional economies, variously known as clusters or industrial districts.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Israel, East Asia, and North America

13. Sponsors, Communities and Standards: Winning in the Local Area Networking Business

Author:
Martin Kenney and Urs von Burg
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Economics has treated technological standards creation as an outcome of network externalities and decisions on the demand side. They pay little attention to the supply side, where firms make strategi choices on which standard to support. These choices can ignite a contest between adherents to the different proposed standards. This case study examines the contest btween the Ethernet and Token Ring standards for local area networking. We find that the critical difference in explaining the success of Ethernet vibrancy was the nature and strategy of the standard's sponsors in assisting the growth of a community of firms supporting the standard.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

14. Went for Cost, Stayed for Quality?: Moving the Back Office to India

Author:
Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Will the next great wave of globalization come in services? Increasingly, components of back-office services, such as payroll and order fulfillment, and some front-office services, such as customer care are being relocated from the U.S. and other developed countries to English-speaking, developing nations especially India, but also other nations such as the Phillipines. Though moving service activities offshore is not entirely new, the pace has of late quickened. The acceleration of this offshoring is intertwined, though not synonymous, with another phenomenon, namely an increasing willingness by firms to outsource what formerly were considered core activities. The importance of the fact that a substantial number of service activities might move offshore is that it was service jobs that were thought to be the future growth area for developed country economies as manufacturing relocated to lower labor cost regions offshore. This is especially important, because these services commonly known as "business processes" (BPs) are among the fastest growing job categories in the US (Goodman and Steadman 2002). Should these jobs begin to move offshore, a new tendency may be underway in the global economy that will be as important or more important than the relocation of manufacturing offshore, and might necessitate a rethinking of government policies across a wide spectrum.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, and India

15. Economic Action Does Not Take Place in a Vacuum: Understanding Cisco's Acquisition and Development Strategy

Author:
Martin Kenney and David Mayer
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Typically, economists and finance researchers have considered corporate acquisitions as arm's length transactions consummated in a relatively perfect market for corporate control, an appealing story no doubt, but it consigns the real world difficulties of managing the acquisition process into a black box. The key to making a successful acquisition does not begin with strategy and end with integration, rather it begins with understanding and participating in the external ecosystem and ends with managing the internal dynamics by which the newly acquired firm will be integrated. This paper finds that traditional "economistic" perspectives ignore the social and organizational dimensions within which the acquisition process is embedded. In tandem with the economist's erasure of the social; the temporal and processual dimensions were ignored. Put differently, acquisitions are treated as point-in-time events occurring in an environment that operates like the stock market in which corporate control, organizational knowledge, and employee fealty is transferred as seamlessly as stock shares. These assumptions ignore the social, temporal, and processual dimensions so critical for explaining acquisition success and failure.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology

16. The Growth and Development of the Internet in the United States

Author:
Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
06-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Rarely does a new technology emerge that galvanizes a dramatic rethinking of the nature of commerce. The Internet is such a technology. At this early stage, it is difficult to appreciate fully the importance of the Internet, but some speculate it might be as momentous as the arrival of the telegraph (Cohen et al. 2000; Standage 1999). Radically new communication technologies such as the Internet have multiple applications and often become ubiquitous. As such, the adoption, diffusion, and development of this new technology provide an especially penetrating view of how different national innovation systems have responded to and shaped the commercial possibilities inherent in the Internet. Of course, such an assessment for an economy as large as that of the U. S. is difficult. It is further complicated by the peculiar way in which communications technologies permeate and facilitate connections and relationships. Often the action of such technologies is imperceptible to most of the actors involved and even to aggregate statistics; e. g., better information transfer between customers and suppliers is not manifested in the finished good, though it is embodied in the good in terms of lower cost and/ or higher quality. Given the diffuse nature and the speed of the Internet's evolution, any analysis can only be tentative.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

17. The Internet and E-commerce Development in Mexico

Author:
Martin Kenney, James Curry, and Oscar Contreras
Publication Date:
05-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The Internet is by all accounts one of the most important innovations of the late twentieth century. As yet the Internet's impact on the economies of developed countries is not obvious, and the economic implications for developing countries are even more unclear. Already much has been written about a supposed "digital divide" within nations and between nations, but no one has a clear understanding of the exact dimensions or implications of this divide. This paper does not take any position on whether Mexico is suffering from a digital divide or is likely to do so in the future; rather, it focuses on the recent rise of Internet sites and e-commerce in Mexico.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Mexico

18. Creating an Environment: Developing Venture Capital in India

Author:
Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
In the last decade, one of the most admired institutions among industrialists and economic policy makers around the world has been the U. S. venture capital industry. A recent OECD (2000) report identified venture capital as a critical component for the success of entrepreneurial high-technology firms and recommended that all nations consider strategies for encouraging the availability of venture capital. With such admiration and encouragement from prestigious international organizations has come various attempts to create an indigenous venture capital industry. This article examines the efforts to create a venture capital industry in India.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and India