Has state played a leading role in upgrading technologies in the Asia Essay

Has state played a leading role in upgrading technologies in the Asia Pacific Answer with reference to relevant theories and us - Essay Example The integration of firms in Asia Pacific into GPNs have greatly stimulated industrial development. Operating under GPNs, Asia Pacific firms have been successful at tapping into the leading markets in the world (Barbara, 2008).   Through this, these firms have been able to compensate for their small size domestic market. Through network participation, Asia Pacific Firms have been able to access to the leading-edge technologies, as well as best-practice management approaches (Barbara, 2008).  This has created pressures, incentives, as well as new opportunities for the Asia Pacific network suppliers to update and upgrade their management and technological capabilities and the workers’ skill levels. Studies indicate that Asia pacific governments have been behind the most of the scientific innovations in these regions. The focus of this paper to discuss the role of Asia Pacific countries in upgrading technologies in the Asia Pacific region. The role of governments continues to be a source of development of industrial capabilities and economic growth in Pacific Asia region. However, the 2010 downturn in the electronics industry and the 1997 global financial crisis brutally exposed the model of technological diversification. A country becomes more vulnerable (1) if it becomes highly integrated into GPN (2) if its large share of exports is  purely electronic, and (3) if it is largely dependent on exporting products to the United States for purposes of getting revenue (Iansiti, & West, 1997). Additionally, returns for the factory model are also decreasing. As capital intensive for these investments increase, new employments are generated (Iansiti & West, 1997). It also causes the decline in local spillovers to domestic suppliers as global contract manufacturers contribute their services to the integrated manufacturing, which in turn increases the share of production of the global industry. Moreover, much of the investments of global factory has remained foo tloose leading to relocation of new low-cost locales and plant closure. Asia Pacific firms heavily rely on Japanese, European, and American firms as their dominant source of new technology. This shows why heavy concentration of innovative capabilities, R&D, and intellectual property rights being centered on the U.S (Iansiti, & West, 1997). For Asia Pacific, this led to razor-thin margins due to hefty licensing fee levied by the dominant global brand firms. A broad consensus has emerged across the region that electronic industries within Asia region need to upgrade to somewhat higher value-added technologically more attractive services, products and production stages (Chomsky, & Robert, 2011).  These changes, however, require strong innovative capabilities to be developed. In order to achieve this, the leading software and electronic companies and the Asia Pacific states have sought to improve and develop knowledge, skills, and management techniques required to help create and comm ercialize new services, products, processes, equipment and business models (Chomsky & Robert, 2011).   The states and these companies have focused on what is feasible (Chanda, 2007). This has been done with the view that the region as a whole has continued to substantially lag behind in the development of the broad-based science and technology systems (Chanda, 2007). Instead of directly adopting technology leadership