The machinery value chain in Brazil: mapping for upgrading

Abstract

This paper aims at mapping machinery value chains in Brazil to check the validity of the smiling curve and the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, investigating opportunities for upgrading. The empirical methodology is based on qualitative research among 50 machinery manufacturing companies in three steps: online survey, interviews, and poll. The main conclusion is that the executives in our sample are sceptical about the smiling curve in Brazil. The COVID-19 crisis seriously impacted most of the consulted machinery companies, and it has caused significant disruptions in their value chains. Companies that reduced their chain’s dependence on suppliers, relying on local networks and verticalization, had more hedge against those ruptures. The executives have shown eight fields of opportunities to upgrade in value chains. The paper contributes to the international literature on Management through its innovative methodology and insights for companies from developing countries.

Keywords:

• Machinery
• global value chains
• COVID-19
• management strategies
• upgrading

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007‐2013) under REA grant agreement no. 600209 (TU Berlin – IPODI). We thank ABIMAQ for cooperating with this research, Thalita F. Oliveira in special.

Notes on contributors

Cristina Froes de Borja Reis

Cristina F. B. Reis Since 2022, vice-coordinator of the Post-Graduation Program on World Political Economy/ Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Brazil. Coordinator of the Global Value Chains Research Group/ UFABC since 2014. Board Member of the Sao Paulo Regional Council of Economists 2021-2023 (CORECON-SP). Fellow at the International Postdoc Initiative/Technical University of Berlin between 2017 and 2020.

Knut Blind

Knut Blind holds since 2006 the Chair of Innovation Economics at the Technical University of Berlin and is head of the Business Unit Innovation and Regulation at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI. Between 2008 and 2016, he also held the Endowed Chair of Standardization at the Rotterdam School of Management at the Erasmus University. His research interests include innovation and regulation, including standardization.