2007 Working Papers
Working Paper 03.07
Annual Symposium Paper
The new global linkages and innovation in production networks: a comparison of Polish and Turkish autocomponents clusters
Guldem Ozatagan
Abstract
In recent decades, many industries have gone through a process of significant restructuringwhere peripheral locations are becoming increasingly important as nodes in this process ofcreating global production networks. They are transforming themselves and building newlinkages to the newly emerging global production networks. This paper aims to investigatethese new linkages peripheral locations are building to integrate themselves to the emergingproduction networks and analyse the performance of the networks they have built. To pursuethese objectives, we draw on primary data gathered through structured interviews with firmsin Turkish and Polish auto-components clusters. The data is employed to compare the twoclusters regarding the linkages they have built in global production networks, the nature ofthese linkages, and the innovativeness of the two clusters. Results from quantitative analysisshow that the two clusters which have built different types of linkages in global networks ofauto-production are equally innovative but the difference lies in their innovative behaviour.Based on the findings we discuss the possible explanations and argue that the two clusters aretaking advantage of the different dynamics characterising their industrial histories, thereorganisation of the industry and the linkages they have built.