UC Berkeley

This dissertation analyzes a new set of policy instruments that several national and regional governments have recently implemented to help their home-grown innovative companies gain access to global technology markets. These initiatives, which in this dissertation are referred to as Global Innovation Bridges (GIBs), introduce a novel spatial approach to supporting global entrepreneurship in peripheral regions. Establishing a physical presence in the most dynamic regions of technological innovation around the world, and having deep ties with organizations in their home country, GIBs have effectively instituted a cross-national business support structure with the capacity to mobilize knowledge, talent, technology and capital across borders. These initiatives are based on the premise that facilitating innovative companies' access to global markets will accelerate their growth at home, generating new jobs and income. But in addition to a quantitative increase in economic activity, governments are implementing GIBs in an attempt to foster a transition towards high-growth, high value-added economic activities.

Despite their potential to stimulate economic development and to foster a qualitative transformation in the economic structure of countries and regions, the literature on entrepreneurship and global entrepreneurship policies remains completely silent about GIBs. This dissertation is the first academic contribution to reveal the workings of this emerging economic development tool. The research achieves two main objectives. First, it provides an initial characterization of GIBs, describing their main features and the factors that are driving national and regional governments to implement them. Based on a multiple case-study of six GIBs with operations in Silicon Valley, California, this characterization also introduces a taxonomy that clearly differentiates GIBs from similar organizations supporting entrepreneurship. Second, it develops an in-depth analysis of the Mexican GIB, the Technology Business Accelerator (TechBA) program, in order to explain how GIBs work. This in-depth study reveals the diversity of actors supporting the mission of the TechBA program as well as the learning processes involved in turning a local company into a global player.

Applying the concept of `communities of practice' (Lave 1991; Brown and Duguid 1991; Wenger 1998; Brown and Duguid 2001) to the analysis of the TechBA program, this dissertation advances the following arguments:

* The TechBA program articulates a community of practice that involves individuals in various organizations linked together by shared experience, expertise, and commitment to a joint enterprise: supporting the global expansion of Mexican companies. These are individuals whose work is related to the many technological, commercial, financial, and legal aspects of launching a new global venture. While all these individuals work for organizations that have their own agendas and goals, they all contribute in one way or another to advancing the mission of the TechBA program.

* TechBA sustains a `distributed' community of practice (Hildreth et al., 2000) that transcends national borders. Through formal partnerships but primarily through informal collaborations with actors in both Mexico and in foreign markets, TechBA articulates a community of practice that operates across distant regions in different countries. The staff and individuals more closely involved in the operation of the TechBA program serve as a `brokers,' mediating among various technical and business communities in distant regions.

* Supporting the global expansion of innovative companies involves a transformation in the views and practices of the entrepreneurs leading the global expansion effort as much as it involves adaptations in the strategy, structure, and organization of a firm. Parallel to the activities to support firm-level adaptations, TechBA facilitates a process of enculturation in which Mexican entrepreneurs develop the values and practices of a foreign business community. Through formal training, but primarily through numerous experience-based learning opportunities, Mexican entrepreneurs develop a new language and codes of communication, new know-how in the form of foreign business practices, new know-who or the knowledge to participate in professional networks in foreign markets, as well as new values and views in line with those of a foreign business community.

* Rather than simply bridging the geographical distance to markets, the cross-national community of practice built around the TechBA program provides the social context for developing the knowledge, skills, practices, and views that are time- and context-specific and difficult to transmit over long distances. The TechBA community of practice serves as a "living curriculum" (Wenger 2006) in which Mexican entrepreneurs can develop a new identity and learn how to be a global entrepreneur.