TY - JOUR

T1 - 'New Argonauts' in China

T2 - Return migrants, transnational entrepreneurship and economic growth in a regional innovation system

AU - Sternberg, Rolf

AU - Müller, Claudia

N1 - Copyright: Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - What effects do recent transnational migration patterns have on regional economic development in metropolitan areas of emerging economies like China? Do the return migrants described by Annalee Saxenian in her book "The New Argonauts" generate the positive effects she describes for Taiwan in Shanghai too? What role do return migrants, who start a firm in their country of origin, play in their regional innovation system? There have been very few empirically based answers to these questions to date. The aim of this paper is to narrow this empirical research gap a little by generating a link between three previously largely independent lines of research: the debate on return migrants in migration research, the phenomenon of transnational entrepreneurship in entrepreneurship research, and research on regional innovation systems. Empirical evidence was gathered in the emerging biotech industry in Shanghai; it is based on in-depth interviews with 15 returning and with five domestic entrepreneurs and with 15 experts from industry and other institutions (e.g. managers of high-tech parks, investment manager) conducted in Shanghai. The results reveal that returning entrepreneurs or "new argonauts" are uniquely positioned to utilise location-specific advantages in two parts of the world by dividing the innovation process into the knowledge production phase (located in more advanced innovation systems abroad) and the commercialisation phase in Shanghai. However, because their strategy is a response to the weaknesses of the Shanghai innovation system, international rather than regional R&D co-operations and face-to-face contacts are important for the companies' innovation base. Returning entrepreneurs in Shanghai can be considered an important intra-regional factor because they reduce the path dependency resulting from the dominance of large state-owned firms and because of knowledge spillovers that occur as a side effect of their integration into regional networks. Their international networks can also be regarded as an extra-regional factor promoting technologybased development. Most biotech firms depend on these networks for their innovation activities and for access to capital. International networks are also vital in order to overcome the lack of capital that is one of the most serious bottlenecks constraining the technology-based development of Shanghai.

AB - What effects do recent transnational migration patterns have on regional economic development in metropolitan areas of emerging economies like China? Do the return migrants described by Annalee Saxenian in her book "The New Argonauts" generate the positive effects she describes for Taiwan in Shanghai too? What role do return migrants, who start a firm in their country of origin, play in their regional innovation system? There have been very few empirically based answers to these questions to date. The aim of this paper is to narrow this empirical research gap a little by generating a link between three previously largely independent lines of research: the debate on return migrants in migration research, the phenomenon of transnational entrepreneurship in entrepreneurship research, and research on regional innovation systems. Empirical evidence was gathered in the emerging biotech industry in Shanghai; it is based on in-depth interviews with 15 returning and with five domestic entrepreneurs and with 15 experts from industry and other institutions (e.g. managers of high-tech parks, investment manager) conducted in Shanghai. The results reveal that returning entrepreneurs or "new argonauts" are uniquely positioned to utilise location-specific advantages in two parts of the world by dividing the innovation process into the knowledge production phase (located in more advanced innovation systems abroad) and the commercialisation phase in Shanghai. However, because their strategy is a response to the weaknesses of the Shanghai innovation system, international rather than regional R&D co-operations and face-to-face contacts are important for the companies' innovation base. Returning entrepreneurs in Shanghai can be considered an important intra-regional factor because they reduce the path dependency resulting from the dominance of large state-owned firms and because of knowledge spillovers that occur as a side effect of their integration into regional networks. Their international networks can also be regarded as an extra-regional factor promoting technologybased development. Most biotech firms depend on these networks for their innovation activities and for access to capital. International networks are also vital in order to overcome the lack of capital that is one of the most serious bottlenecks constraining the technology-based development of Shanghai.

KW - Brain circulation

KW - Emerging economies

KW - New argonauts

KW - Regional economic development

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78649553419&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:78649553419

VL - 141

SP - 103

EP - 125

JO - ERDE

JF - ERDE

SN - 0013-9998

IS - 1-2

ER -