The Role of Springboarding in Economic Catch-Up: A Theoretical Perspective

This paper offers a taxonomic examination of the springboard perspective, outlining three upgrading paths pursued by emerging market firms – path following, path creating and path compressing. The choice of the upgrading path is determined primarily by home-country conditions including market size and growth, innovative capability, government intervention, and market and institutional imperfections. We find that “springboarding” is a strategy most likely to be adopted by path-compressing firms and least likely to be observed among path-creating firms.