Decentralised production organisation and institutional transformation: large and small firm networks in Chile and Nicaragua
This paper analyses changing production organisation and new governance that contribute to productive upgrading in developing economies. It discusses research conducted in Chile and Nicaragua, focused on agroindustrial clusters. Recent analyses of small firms in developing countries highlight the important presence of clusters, and local factors in building global competitiveness. This paper argues for an approach that focuses on the institutional arrangements to coordinate decentralised production networks. It emphasises the role of learning-by-monitoring as the key to successful adjustment in the face of liberalisation and globalisation. It identifies the institutional reshaping of relations between firms, and between the state and the economy. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.