The usual perspective on technology spillovers from FDI sees the MNC subsidiary as a passive actor. It presumes that the technological superiority that spreads from subsidiaries to other firms in the host economy is initially created outside it by MNC parent companies, and is delivered to subsidiaries via international technology transfer. The role of subsidiaries is little more than to act as a ‘leaky container’ lying between the technology transfer pipeline and the absorption of spillovers by domestic firms. This paper suggests a different model in which a substantial part of the potential for spillover is created within local subsidiaries as a result of their own knowledge-creating and accumulating activities in the host economy. We explore empirically the effects of these activities on technology spillovers from FDI using data for industrial firms in Argentina over the period 1992–96. The analysis suggests that significant results can be obtained incorporating subsidiaries' own technological activities as an explanatory variable of the spillover process.

Models underlying most research about foreign direct investment (FDI)-related spillovers suggest they originate in the centrally accumulated knowledge assets of multinational corporations (MNCs). From there a one-way 'pipeline' runs via a) international technology transfer to subsidiaries, b) 'leaks' into the host economy, c) varying degrees of absorption by domestic firms to d) those firms' productivity increases. We argue that this gives inadequate attention to knowledgecreating activities by MNC subsidiaries and domestic firms inside the host economy. These co-located and interacting activities are increasingly evident in knowledge-rich locations in advanced economies, reflecting location-specific advantages. We suggest here that such locally rooted and co-located knowledge creation may also lie between, but not necessarily causally connect, FDI and domestic firms' productivity growth in intermediate economies – as illustrated by the case of Argentina in the mid 1990s. Wider questions about policy are noted, with implications for future research highlighted.

A growing number of studies suggest that only innovative subsidiaries generate positive technological effects in host countries. In this context, this paper explores the variability in the intensity of innovative activity across MNC subsidiaries within a late-industrialising host economy in connection with two factors: the subsidiaries' functional integration within (a) their global corporations and (b) their host economy. We found that the more innovative subsidiaries were those that enjoy integration to both the local economy and their global corporation. However, they represented a small proportion of all subsidiaries, most of which were disconnected from both their global corporation and the local economy. We also found that, in common with some findings in advanced country contexts, but in contrast to common expectations in industrialising economies, subsidiaries that were strongly integrated into their parent corporations undertook more, not less, intensive innovative activity than those that were well integrated into the host economy. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper addresses the emergence and development of firm-centred knowledge networks within learning and innovation systems in late-industrialising countries. A key contribution of the paper is conceptual and methodological: the development of an original typology of knowledge network properties to trace out changes in the form of networks as they evolve over time. A second contribution consists in providing an example of the application of the typology by examining the emergence and development of a firm-centred knowledge network in the case of Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company over more than 30 years between the late 1960s and the early 2000s. This demonstrates that the properties of Petrobras' knowledge networks continuously evolved through a succession of stages towards (i) increasing intentionality in the management decision-making underlying network development, (ii) growing complexity and diversity in selected cognitive characteristics, and (iii) greater complementarity in the division of innovative labour between Petrobras and its network partners. These original results from applying the typology, in conjunction with retrospective historical methods, illustrate only one aspect of its potential value in the analysis of knowledge networks in late-industrialising economies: tracking out organisational evolution over long periods of time. Others include the comparative examination of network differences across different circumstances and the analysis of relationships between changes/differences in network properties and other characteristics of learning/innovation systems and their contexts. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper is about technological learning in wine producing clusters in Italy and Chile. It raises questions about policy measures to strengthen knowledge-centred interactions in cluster innovation systems. It shows that strong intra-cluster networks cannot be assumed to exist simply because firms share geographically bounded locations. Instead, networks are shaped by the firms' knowledge resources. Second, the effectiveness of knowledge transfer links from PRTOs to cluster firms depends heavily on characteristics of the intra-cluster knowledge network, in particular on the extent to which the firms are connected within the cluster via gatekeeper and broker roles. Implications for policy are noted.

Martin Bell argues that war reporting as it has been practised from the time of William Howard Russell in the Crimea is no longer possible. He describes this commentary as its obituary. Twenty-first century warfare as conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan offers no foothold for independent and free-ranging journalism. Reporters are driven back into green zones and fortified compounds where they no longer have a function as eyewitnesses. Embedded reporting is so limited in scope that it serves as little more than a recruiting movie. Wars which are fought among the people are no longer reported from among the people. The news agenda has also retreated from the real world into a comfort zone of its own. A cloud of obscurity has settled over the battlefield. Copyright © 2008 SAGE.

Research on industrial clusters in developing countries is increasingly concerned with how their competitiveness evolves and changes over time. This article shows what analytical shifts are needed to unravel the technological underpinnings of clusters' longer-term competitiveness. Building upon an understanding of technological learning in large-scale firms, we stress the need to focus on systems of knowledge accumulation, rather than just production systems. With this in mind, future research should investigate clusters' active capabilities for generating and diffusing knowledge, and their openness to external sources of knowledge. A conceptual framework to guide investigation of these aspects of cluster knowledge-systems is presented.

Most analyses of the relationship between spatial clustering and the technological learning of firms have emphasised the influence of the former on the latter, and have focused on intra-cluster learning as the driver of innovative performance. This paper reverses those perspectives. It examines the influence of individual firms’ absorptive capacities on both the functioning of the intra-cluster knowledge system and its interconnection with extra-cluster knowledge. It applies social network analysis to identify different cognitive roles played by cluster firms and the overall structure of the knowledge system of a wine cluster in Chile. The results show that knowledge is not diffused evenly ‘in the air’, but flows within a core group of firms characterised by advanced absorptive capacities. Firms’ different cognitive roles include some—as in the case of technological gatekeepers—that contribute actively to the acquisition, creation and diffusion of knowledge. Others remain cognitively isolated from the cluster, though in some cases strongly linked to extra-cluster knowledge. Possible implications for policy are noted.