Gerald A. McDermott
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                                      Research

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My research focuses on the intersection between international business and public policy in emerging market countries, mainly in East-Central Europe and Latin America. My main interest is on the emergence and co-evolution of inter-firm networks and economic institutions by studying how a variety of sectors, from manufacturing to agriculture to banking, reconstruct themselves under conditions of high uncertainty. While this work speaks to ongoing debates in a variety of fields, such as management, economic sociology, and political economy, it aims to reveal fundamental lessons that can aid policy makers, managers, and civic leaders rebuild their communities. My earlier work focused on the impact of industrial networks on the creation of economic governance institutions in post-communist countries. Related articles and my book can be found below. In particular, the articles in Comparative Political Studies and the Review of International Political Economy analyze how different political approaches to institution-building can lead to significant variation in network restructuring, firm creation, bank restructuring, and financial regulatory capabilities.

Innovation in Emerging Markets
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I am currently finishing up an extensive project analyzing how societies with long histories of backwardness can reconstruct their innovative capacities to become internationally competitive. This project focuses on the ways in which societies construct public-private institutions that can both produce new types of upgrading resources and recombine existing networks to facilitate knowledge creation and diffusion. The project empirically analyzes the reconstruction of the Argentine wine and grape sectors as well as the Argentine autoparts sector. In both cases, I track industry and public policy innovations over a 20 year period across different provinces. I also implemented extensive firm-level surveys that offer quantitative evidence about the ways a firm’s “public-private network” can facilitate learning and upgrading. 
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  • “Does Size Still Matter? How Micro Firms and SMEs Vary in Network Learning,” Industry and Innovation, Forthcoming 2019. (with R. Corredoira)
  • “Walking Before You Can Run: The Knowledge, Networks and Institutions for Emerging Market SMEs,” in A. Camuffo & T. Pedersen, eds. Breaking up the Global Value Chain: Opportunities and Consequences. Series on Advances in International Management, 30: 311-332. 2017. (with C. Pietrobelli).
  • "Adaptation, Bridging and Firm Upgrading: How Non-Market Institutions and MNCs Facilitate Knowledge Recombination in Emerging Markets," Journal of International Business Studies, 45: 699-722, 2014 (with R. Corredoira).
  • “Public-Private Institutions as Catalysts for Upgrading in Emerging Market Societies,” Academy of Management Journal, 52(6): 1270-1296, December 2009 (with R. Corredoira & G. Kruse).
  • "Network Composition, Collaborative Ties, and Upgrading in Emerging Market Firms: Lessons from the Argentine Autoparts Sector," Journal of International Business Studies, 41:308-329, February 2010 (with R. Corredoira).
  • "The Politics of Institutional Renovation and Economic Upgrading: Recombining the Vines that Bind in Argentina." Politics and Society, 35(1): 103-143, March 2007.
  • "Los racimos de la innovacion: Cuyo a la vanguardia vitivinicola."  Este informe en Español analiza el sistema de innovación en el sector vitivinícola en Mendoza y San Juan, Argentina. Demuestra la manera en que nuestro enfoque y metodología de las redes y instituciones pueden ayudar las estrategias empresariales y las políticas públicas. 
    (This is a report in Spanish for industry and policy leaders about the sources of innovation in the wine and grape regions of Mendoza and San Juan Argentina. The report shows how our approach to network and institutional analysis can assist both firms and regions.)
  • For more papers about the impact of public-private networks on upgrading in South America, especially unique survey data on the wine and auto industries and our Award Winning paper from the 2007 Academy of Management Annual Meetings, please send an email to: [email protected].

Transnational Integration and Development

I am also in the midst of a large project with Professor Laszlo Bruszt of the European University Institute that analyzes the role of “transnational integration regimes” on the development of domestic or local institutions in emerging democratic countries. This work compares the impact of the EU Accession Process, NAFTA, and the Mercosur in, respectively, post-communist countries, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. To do so, we analyze how these different regimes promote or inhibit institution building in such policy domains as food safety, capital markets, labor, and regional development. Our initial framework paper and new book can be found here:​
  • Bruszt, Laszlo and Gerald A. McDermott, “Transnational Regulatory Integration and Development: A New Framework for Institutional Change” (Integração regulatória transnacional e desenvolvimento: uma nova estrutura para mudanças institucionais), RAE-Revista de Administração de Empresas, 56(4): 447-455, July – August, 2016.
  • Leveling the Playing Field: Transnational Regulatory Integration and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2014.
  • "Integrating Rule Takers: Transnational Integration Regimes Shaping Institutional Change in Emerging Market Democracies," Review of International Political Economy, 19(5): 742-778, December 2012.

Additional Articles about Institutional Change, Innovation, SMEs, and Banks in East-Central Europe and Latin America

  • ​"Politics and the Evolution of Inter-firm Networks: A Post-Communist Lesson," Organization Studies, 28 (6): 885-908, June 2007.
  • ​"Politics, Power, and Institution Building: Bank Crises and Supervision in East Central Europe," Review of International Political Economy, May 2007.​
  • "Institutional Change and Firm Creation in East-Central Europe: An Embedded Politics Approach," Comparative Political Studies, 37(2): 188-217, March 2004.
  • ​"La Reinvención del Federalismo: Governance de los Experimentos Institucionales Descentralizados en América Latina (Reinventing Federalism: Governing Decentralized Institutional Experiments in Latin America)," Desarrollo Económico, 41(164): 611-642, January-March 2002.​
  • "Entrepreneurship and Privatization in Central Europe: The Tenuous Balance Between Destruction and Creation," (with A. Spicer & B. Kogut), Academy of Management Review, 25(3): 630-649, July 2000.
  • "The Network Properties of Corporate Governance and Industrial Restructuring: A Post-Socialist Lesson," (with A. Hayri), Industrial and Corporate Change, 7(1): 153-193, 1998.​​​
  • "The Role of Small Firms in the Industrial Development and Transformation of Czechoslovakia," (with M. Mejstrik), Small Business Economics, 4(3): 179-200, 1992. Reprinted in Zoltan Acs (ed.), Small Firms and Economic Growth, The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
  • "Argentine SMEs and their Support Programs: The Barriers and Possibilities for Local Learning"
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