Business strategy and upgrading in global value chains: a multiple case study in Information Technology firms of Brazilian origin

Abstract

The issue of upgrading in global value chains has been treated in the literature, but there are still gaps to be filled in. One issue that still needs further investigation is the relation of business strategy and evolution of firms in global value chains, known as upgrading in the literature. In this paper, we have the objective of examining the occurrence and quality of upgrading in internationalized Information Technology firms of Brazilian origin. We employed the multiple case study method researching eight IT firms to study the issue. Different from what is expected, facts presented in the paper imply that although global value chains and upgrading are confirmed as useful concepts, not all the findings the literature presents converge with what this research brings. As for example, results do not converge with what was found in the literature for clothing. In other results, we confirmed what is in the literature, most notably, having the evolution in the chain blocked by clients and also competitive marginalization. Similar to any research, this one has limitations, which we list at the end of the manuscript.