Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Athreye, Suma
Author-Email: athreye@merit.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT, Brunel Business School, Brunel University
Author-Name: Godley, Andrew  
Author-Email: a.c.godley@reading.ac.uk
Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Management, University of Reading
	 Business School
Title: Internationalising to create Firm Specific Advantages: Leapfrogging
	 strategies of U.S. Pharmaceutical firms in the 1930s and 1940s &
	 Indian Pharmaceutical firms in the 1990s and 2000s 
Abstract: Internationalisation is a useful strategy to gain firm specific 
	 advantages during periods of technological discontinuity. The 
	 pharmaceutical industry offers us two such episodes as examples: when 
	 the antibiotics revolution was beginning and when the possibilities of 
	 genetic routes to new drug discovery were realised. This paper compares 
	 the strategies adopted by laggard U.S. firms scrambling to gain 
	 capabilities in antibiotics, and Indian firms equally eager to acquire 
	 positions in new biotechnology based drugs and shows that both groups 
	 used internationalisation strategies to gain technological advantages 
	 and build up their firm specific advantages.
Classification-JEL: F23, L22, L25, L65, N80, O33
Keywords: Technological leapfrogging, Internationalisation Strategies, 
	 Indian Pharmaceutical industry, Antibiotics revolution, US 
	 Pharmaceuticals
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2008
Number: 051
File-URL: http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2008/wp2008-051.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2008051