Can firms and economies utilize global value chains for development? How can they move from low-income to middle-income and even high-income status? This book addresses these questions through a series of case studies examining upgradation and innovation by firms operating in GVCs in Asia. The countries examined are China, India, South Korea, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka, with studies of firms operating in varied sectors - aerospace components, apparel, automotive, consumer electronics including mobile phones, telecom equipment, IT software and services, and pharmaceuticals.

‘This exciting book adds … to the book on labour in global value chains (GVC), here addressing the capturing and creation of new rents through technological and organisational innovations and transfers. It also addresses the thorny policy problems of supporting change in internationally splintered stages of production-distribution. A valuable contribution to development policy studies, applied economics and business studies, it will interest a wide audience outside the world of GVC enthusiasts.'

Barbara Harriss-White - University of Oxford

‘… this stimulating, historically informed and empirically rich collection helps to move the global value chain framework beyond a description of the distributional outcomes of the growing global division of labour to an analysis of why these outcomes transpire. In doing so, it deeply enriches policy, not just for governments, but also for the corporate sector and civil society.'

Raphael Kaplinsky - University of Sussex

‘Value chains in Asia are the most sophisticated in the world, creating enormous productive efficiencies and innovation and at the same reinforcing deep social inequities. … [This book] provides serious new perspectives on the twenty-first-century patterns of Asian economic growth and development. I highly recommend the book.'

William Milberg - The New School for Social Research, New York

'All in all, this book is a useful and timely contribution to ongoing discussions on GVCs. It offers a range of detailed case studies to inform our understanding of the changing organisation of global production, the prospects for catching-up of late industrialisers and a solid empirical account of the experiences of industrial upgrading in several Asian economies.'

Yvette To Source: Journal of Contemporary Asia