Technology-intensive Sectors Research Articles

Appearance and motion suitability of men's seamless pullover knitwear based on shoulder designs

ABSTRACT This research contributes to the industry’s shift toward becoming a technology-intensive sector. It offers practical recommendations for knitwear designers and educators, helping to foster the sustainable growth of the knitwear industry. This study focuses on evaluating the mechanical properties and wearability of men’s seamless pullover knitwear based on different shoulder designs. The wearability evaluation included both aesthetic appraisal and an analysis of motion suitability. This study offers the following practical design recommendations for the production of seamless knitwear. First, the Set in B design exhibited the best mechanical properties, with superior tensile strength and elongation recovery. Second, the three-dimensional (3D) sleeve design was found to be the most aesthetically superior. Finally, the Epaulet design was found to offer the highest level of comfort during wear. By integrating this technology with other industries, the knitwear industry could evolve into a high-value, sustainable industry.

Substitution effect of Asian economies on China’s industrial and supply chains: from the perspective of global production network

This paper views China Production Network (CPN) as an integral component of the Global Production Network (GPN) and constructs null model (GIVCBN-I model) and the counterfactual model (GIVCBN-II or GIVCBN-III model) to identify and measure the potential industrial relocation risk exposure of CPN based on the Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) table. The main findings are as follows. Firstly, Altasia will induce more of China’s industrial and supply chains to break compared with ASEAN, which also means that strong industrial complementarity exists between Japan, South Korea, India, Bangladesh and the ASEAN member countries, enabling Altasia to have a more significant substitution effect on China. Secondly, the counterfactual models’ network-level characteristic indicators are worse than those of the null model in economic terms, suggesting that removing trade barriers for intermediate goods within Altasia could lead to the decoupling of industrial sectors in the CPN, thereby accelerating the trend of China’s industrial and supply chains relocating offshore. Thirdly, according to the comparison results of node-level characteristic indicators, Altasia has weakened China’s influence scope, profitability, and robustness of risk within the global industrial and supply chains, but mainly concentrating on its resource-intensive and labor-intensive sectors rather than capital-intensive and technology-intensive sectors, which indicates that some China’s industrial sectors still maintain substantial competitive advantages in the GPN. In sum, this paper provides theoretical guidance for identifying and analyzing the trends of industrial relocation in the Asia-Pacific region and helps industrial policymakers deepen the understanding of regional economic integration and its impact.

Venture Clienting in Corporate Practice: What type of Established Companies are Using the Venture Client Model?

Start-ups have become a pillar of EC' open innovation initiatives. With the aim of accessing start-up innovation, established companies (EC) use various corporate venturing modes. However, as established corporate venturing modes (e.g. corporate venture capital or accelerators) do not provide direct access to start-up innovation, the venture client model (VCLM) is receiving increasing attention in corporate practice. In the VCLM, ECs become paying customers of start-ups without taking equity - they become venture clients. In joint pilot projects, they apply start-up solutions to their products, processes or business models in order to solve relevant business problems and create strategic impact for increased competitiveness. The literature lists different EC using the VCLM such as BMW, Bosch, Continental, Daimler, Siemens, or ZF. This suggests that the VCLM is only used in EC with tens of thousands of employees, from Germany and in technology-intensive sectors such as automotive, mechanical engineering or telecommunications. On the other hand, GIMMY describes the suitability of the VCLM for any EC. However, in order to develop practical solutions to the challenges of the VCLM (e.g. slow purchasing, legal and IT processes or lack of acceptance of start-ups as collaboration partners), it is necessary to know the users (type of EC) of these solutions. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to characterize the EC using the VCLM with respect to industry, size and regionality.

Exit routes, investor type, and the Covid-19 crisis: Insights from UK equity-funded companies

Using a sample of UK equity funded companies, we examine differences in the exit strategy of companies funded by distinct investor types and operating in various technology intensive sectors during a period of crisis. Our results corroborate the hypothesis that investor involvement through oversight and imparting expertise augments the likelihood of favourable outcomes. This is particularly evident in high technology sectors. We observe increased exit activity amidst the crisis and notable disparities, contingent upon investor type, concerning chosen exit pathways.

TURKISH PARTICIPATION BANKING WITH THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL BANKING: 2020 - 2023 PERIOD ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

Participation banking is one of the banking types operating in line with Islamic principles. As is known, the banking sector is one of the most technology-intensive sectors today. The healthy and sustainable development and digital transformation of participation banking is gaining momentum in Turkey as in the global financial sector. The prominent factors in digital banking are mobile banking usage, call centre statistics, total number of digital customers, transaction volume and transaction distribution of participation banks. In this study, it is aimed to make a digital analysis and evaluation of Turkish Participation Banking. Thus, capturing future trends in participation banking, ensuring sustainability and strategic planning analyses can be designed much more efficiently. The analyses cover the period 2020-2023. The fact that the analysis period coincides with the beginning of the pandemic is also meaningful in terms of the effects of the digital outlook, which gained momentum after the pandemic, on participation banking. For example, while the number of customers acquired in remote customer acquisition statistics was 23,618 in the last month of 2021, it corresponds to a proportional increase of 148% with 58,594 in the 9th month of 2023. While digital banking active customer usage was 81.36% only in mobile banking in the 2nd period of 2020, it was 88.86% with an increase of 7.5% in the 2nd period of 2023. As a result of this study, it is expected that participation banking will become more widespread in the future and competition with conventional banks will gain a different dimension in the field of digitalisation.

The Effects of Trade Participation on Labor Productivity, Wages and Female Employment: Evidence from Egyptian Manufacturing Firms

The study examines the effects of firm trade participation on labor productivity, wages, and female employment using recent manufacturing enterprise survey data for Egypt. It finds positive labor productivity premium for both exporting and importing firms, being the highest for small-sized exporting firms reflecting their greater benefits from learning-by-exporting. Importing intermediate inputs enhances productivity the most for firms in medium-high and high technology intensive sectors. Moreover, both exporting and importing firms pay higher average wages than non-exporters and non-importers, where economies of scale and higher productivity of trading firms-rather than the skill characteristics or composition of labor force- work as the explanatory channels. Also, firm trade participation enhances gender labor outcomes through reducing the gender wage gap and employing a higher share of female workers especially in low technology export sectors. To translate these favorable impacts into an economywide labor market improvements in Egypt, more efforts should be done in reforming the business environment to enable a greater participation of small firms into export markets and an easier access of firms-especially those operating in technologically advanced sectors- to essential imported inputs that embody advanced foreign knowledge and/or are of higher quality than domestic alternatives.

Does cross-border M&A improve merging firms’ domestic performances?

Facing the concerns that outward foreign direct investments might hollow out domestic corporate activities, we examine whether cross-border acquisitions by emerging market enterprises (EMEs) improve or damage domestic corporate performances based on the data of 348 Indian firms’ cross-border M&A experiences from 1995 to 2017. We investigate acquirers’ post-M&A performances by nonparametric flexible conditional difference-in-difference (DID) analysis which considers different treatment timing and periods. We find that cross-border acquisitions increase acquiring firms’ domestic sales, total labor costs, and total factor productivity (TFP). In addition, we demonstrate that Indian firms’ cross-border M&As in technology-intensive sectors with merged firms located in OECD countries taking the form of horizontal M&As show better domestic performances. The results implicate that well-tuned outward FDIs via cross-border M&As of emerging economies do not hollow out but complement domestic corporate activities.

The effect of technological intensity on international trade

This paper aims to show the impact of technological intensity (R&D intensity) on trade. Using a detailed product-level dataset of 118 countries from 1988 to 2006 and the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood (PPML) estimator, this paper provides robust evidence that technological intensity promotes exports mainly through increasing the variety of exports. More specifically, a 1-percentage point increase in the country’s technological intensity promotes the variety of exported products by around 0.12% on average across all 15 sectors. In addition, total exports and the variety of exported products increase are higher in technology-intensive sectors.

Urban Economic Efficiency, Environmental Factors, and Digital Finance: Impacts on Sustainable Development in Chinese Cities

This study investigates the potential of digital finance to mitigate the environmental impact of economic development. Utilizing panel data from 290 Chinese cities between 2011 and 2019, we employ a two-way fixed effects model to control for unobservable city characteristics and time-invariant macro factors. Our findings reveal that cities with higher proportions of value-added tax and secondary industries (mainly for manufacturing) tend to experience increased air pollution. Conversely, cities characterized by higher economic efficiency exhibit better air quality, underscoring the significance of prioritizing technology-intensive sectors during economic development. Pollution control technologies, such as centralized wastewater treatment systems and harmless treatment systems for household waste, also play positive roles. Moreover, technological and educational investments correlate with increased urban green coverage and lower air pollution, highlighting the pivotal role of technology development and residents’ literacy in fostering sustainable practices. Although we initially observed a positive association between the index of digital financial technology and air pollution, which could be attributed to the influence of economic growth, our study employs instrumental variable regression to unveil their true correlation. The results suggest the application of digital financial technology may enhance environmental awareness, contributing to the mitigation of air pollution.

ECONOMIC POLICY UNCERTAINTY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY- IS THERE A RELATİON? CASE - STUDY G7

Economic uncertainty significantly affects the macroeconomic performances of countries and many sectors. In this context, one of the sectors affected by economic uncertainty is the renewable energy sector. Since the sector in question is a relatively new sector, it is a capi-tal and technology intensive sector with high costs. For this reason, in addition to domes-tic savings, foreign capital flows from abroad are needed in renewable energy investments, as in most investment items, especially in developing countries. Capital flow from abroad depends on the economic stability of the country and the applied economic policy. In this context, in this study, the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and renewable energy investments has been empirically examined for the 1997-2021 period, with the help of Han and Phillips (2010) method in the case of G7 countries. The results show that increases in economic policy uncertainty reduce renewable energy investments in the countries selected as the sample group and throughout the study period.

The regional and temporal nature of hypercompetition

Numerous scholars have suggested that the global technology-intensive sector has become hypercompetitive, yet few have tested this empirically. Those that have find seemingly conflicting evidence. Applying commonly used measures, we explore whether this could be due to hypercompetition being more time and context specific than previously thought. Based on data from the United States, Europe, Japan, and China covering 1980–2018, we find no indication of a generalized increase in business performance volatility in this sector across regions. We do find a declining stability in the performance of Japanese firms over the study period, but in US firms only leading up to the burst of the dotcom bubble. A structural break analysis helps us conclude that hypercompetition is a phenomenon limited in both location, time, and industry, linked to industry breakpoints across its life cycle.

Examining the interaction of technology adoption-diffusion and sectoral emission intensity in developing and emerging countries

This study offers a new perspective on the drivers of environmental sustainability for sector level (manufacturing, mining, agriculture, business, trade, and transport) analysis. In this case, country-level sectoral dynamic index for technology adoption and emission intensity were constructed to study the environmental efficiency effect of technology adoption and technology diffusion across tradable and non-tradable sectors by using empirical illustration for 49 developing and emerging countries during 1990–2018 period. By correcting for potential bias arising from endogeneity and cross-border spillover effects via cross-section dependence, results reveal long-term effects of technological changes. Importantly, it is shown that the environmental efficiency effect of technology adoption holds in technology-intensive sectors (i.e manufacturing, mining, agriculture) only at lower capitalization levels, thus establishing a U-shaped nexus of technology adoption and carbon emission. Additionally, it is found that trade networks reduce emission intensities by improving technology diffusion across all the tradable sectors and in transport sector. Moreover, trade alone mitigates carbon intensity across all the sectors while income per capita spur carbon intensity in the tradable sectors. From policy insight, the study identifies the need for stricter policy directives to scale up energy and clean technologies adoption in all sector activities.

Evaluation of the Reality of the Intangible Assets of Some Companies Listed in the Iraq Stock Exchange

The modern business environment witnessed many transformations during the nineties of the last century, most notably the increasing importance of the intangible elements represented in knowledge, technology, individual skills and other factors that have become the main source of wealth and income and the enhancement of the competitive advantages owned by business enterprises that help them survive and grow. This was accompanied by an increase in the market value of business establishments in a manner that exceeds many times its book value, especially in knowledge and technology-intensive sectors such as communications, medicine and software. This made the financial statements lose a lot of their solvency and comparability. Intangible assets are one of the contributing factors in determining the discrepancy between the company's value according to its accounting records, and the company's value according to its market value. With that argument in mind, it is necessary to understand the true nature of intangible assets from the point of view of financiers. Intangible assets are important for many establishments in most industrial sectors such as patents, goodwill, and service sectors such as computer software development work.

Exploring how companies disclose the digital transformation in the 'content elements' of the integrated report

At present, the link between the deployment of new technologies and the integrated reporting (IR) processes is a topic of growing interest. The relationship between digital transformation (DT) and IR represents an underexplored field. After analysing from a theoretical point of view the emerging profiles both of IR and DT, this research investigates a sample of European companies included in the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) database. The aim is to analyse the positioning of the information about DT within the 'content elements' and to assess its different dimensions. The main findings show that the companies under analysis reported more information about DT in 'organisational overview and external environment' and in 'strategy and resource allocation'. Furthermore, technology-intensive sectors reported more about DT. Given the preliminary nature of the study and its findings, it paves the way for further research on the topic.

Reframing the High-Technology Landscape in Greece: Empirical Evidence and Policy Aspects

Purpose: The major purpose of the paper is to explore, identify and highlight the general and specialized (sector-specific) long-term technology trends following the evolution of technology-intensive sectors in Greece during the last years. In a similar vein, sectoral differentiations have been identified and highlighted (e.g. evolution, growth, size distribution, industrial dynamics) as an analytical dimension of innovative activity across the high-technology sectoral domain. Design/methodology/approach: The paper methodology consists of a systematic review of primary data collected through the Eurostat/SBS database and the SME Performance Review 2022, as one of the major tools the European Commission uses to monitor and assess countries' progress in implementingthe SmallBusinessAct (SBA). The methodological approach of the paper involves the mapping of sector-specific trends in terms of technology-intensive categories, size classes and underlying sectoral characteristics and dynamics trends. Findings: The exploration of detailed and long-term data within the landscape of technology-intensive sectors in Greece, provides a clearer picture for the upward and downward trends, the sector-specific differentiations and the upcoming challenges. High-tech enterprises constitute a considerably important part of the country’s productive base with gradually increasing trends in all relevant categories. This is further motivated by the development of start-ups and spin-offs in several fields of higher technological specialization (‘deep tech’). Research limitations/implications: It is widely accepted that aggregated technology growth is a long-term and multi-level process within an economy. Further research regarding the actual and potential spillover effects of technology sectors across the wider economy constitutes an important area of further research. The paper provides a multi-dimensional analytical framework to identify sector-based technological and industrial underlying dynamics and understand long-term sectoral characteristics and trends within the high-tech industry evolution in Greece. Originality/value: The paper provides an analytical approach to explore the underlying industrial dynamic trends within the technology-intensive sectors in Greece. The exploration of detailed and long-term data within the landscape of technology-intensive sectors in Greece provides an overall view of the underlying technology-intensive sectors’ dynamics, the sector-specific differentiations, the upcoming challenges and the innovation policy implications.

External technological sources, subsidies and firm productivity in China

ABSTRACT Productivity is a key factor that differentiates firm competitiveness. To promote productivity, the internal source, research and development expenditure, is undoubtedly a primary driver, while various external sources are also critical. This study examines the determinants of productivity in Chinese firms, focusing on external technological sources, especially policy-induced factors, including tariff-free imported intermediates, forced technology transfer through international joint ventures (IJVs) and production subsidies. Based on firm–customs matched data for 2001–2007, we find that the technologies embodied in imported intermediates and IJVs in technology-intensive sectors positively influence productivity. Production subsidies also have a significant and positive relationship with productivity. Overall, the above findings suggest the effectiveness of policy instruments. Further heterogeneous analyses highlight the differences in productivity effects by isolating the above factors individually in various dimensions.

The Impact of Global Value Chain Embedding on Carbon Emissions Embodied in China’s Exports

The impact of global value chain (GVC) division of labor on carbon emissions embodied in exports has attracted extensive attention from scholars, but existing studies have not distinguished the heterogeneous impact of different GVC embedding patterns on the carbon emissions embodied in exports. This study examines the effects of two GVC embedding patterns (forward embedding and backward embedding) on carbon emissions embodied in exports using data from 46 sectors in China from 2000 to 2014. The results show that both the backward and forward embedding patterns are characterized by increasing forward participation which increases carbon emissions embodied in Chinese exports. By contrast, the forward embedding pattern is characterized by increasing the length of the forward production chain and increasing the global value chain location index to help reduce the carbon emissions embodied in exports. There is significant heterogeneity in the effect of forward and backward embedding patterns on the carbon emissions embodied in exports. Increasing the length of forward production chains can effectively reduce the carbon emissions embodied in exports in labor-intensive and technology-intensive sectors but has no significant effect on capital-intensive sectors. Therefore, the Chinese government should start to reduce the carbon emissions embodied in China’s exports by changing the GVC embedding pattern, improving the position of GVC embedding, and vigorously developing energy-saving and emission reduction technologies and clean industries, to help China achieve its CO2 reduction target in 2030.

Technology Intensive Exports and Growth of Asian Economies

The emphasis on enhancing and specialising in technology exports and altering policy environment in Asian economies has been dominant since 2000. The present study is an attempt to empirically investigate the effect of technology exports on enhancing growth of Asian economies during the period 2001 to 2018. To assess the linkages between growth, investments, labour productivity and technology exports, panel least squares with cross section weights is applied for the economies. To assess the relationship between the variables for each individual country ARDL technique is applied. The results indicate long run relationship between low, medium low and medium high technology exports and growth as well as domestic investment and growth. For individual nations, the results indicate varying intensity of technology exports have a different relationship with growth. The results also suggest the need for Government of each nation to enhance its effort on the development of policies which focus on attracting investments and further promoting exports of technology intensive sectors. JEL Codes: F14, F60, O19

Resource constrained innovation in a technology intensive sector: Frugal medical devices from manufacturing firms in South Africa

Most medical devices are designed by western firms from efficient innovation systems with a focus on their home markets. A disproportionately high percentage of imported medical devices in low resource settings become non-functional. Despite interest from global health and innovation studies, little is known about firms in emerging markets appreciative of challenges in their home environments. Using empirical evidence from innovative manufacturing firms in South Africa, this study investigates frugal orientation and mechanisms to innovate under resource constraints, in a technology intensive sector typically under the purview of western firms. Systematic analysis of six devices by adapting a global health lens reveals that while some innovations specifically address health challenges of low resource, others are more affordable technological innovations with universal relevance and some frugal elements. Resource constrained innovation strategies involved building advanced internal manufacturing capabilities to overcome institutional voids while forging multiple knowledge collaborations to complement inhouse capabilities. This drives frugality around design, engineering and manufacturing processes. Innovation delivery strategies are complementary to these processes. The evidence suggests fundamentally new products were designed in collaborative bottom up processes. The role of the state and global non-profits in harnessing frugal innovations for public health was found to be critical.

The impact of exporting on women's employment

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the effect of exports on women's employment rate for Turkish manufacturing firms over a recent period of 2003–2015.Design/methodology/approachThe authors establish treatment models and use propensity score matching (PSM) techniques together with difference-in-difference methodology.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that starting to export increases women’s employment rate for manufacturing firms. Gains in female employment rates are observed for the firms operating in low and medium low technology intensive sectors, low-wage sectors as well as laborlabor-intensive goods exporting sectors.Originality/valueThe authors complement previous literature by utilizing a rich harmonized firm-level dataset that covers a large number of firms and a recent time period. The authors distinguish between several sub-samples of firms according to technology intensity of the sector in which they operate, wage level and factor intensity of exports and investigate whether or not women gain from trade in terms of employment opportunities.