Talk 1: Sectoral resilience through learning in networks and GVCs: A historical perspective on the food-processing and clothing industries in Poland
This event will discuss how inter-organisational learning in networks and Global Value Chains (GVCs) contributed to building sectoral resilience in the Polish food processing and clothing industries.
Speaker: Esin Yoruk is an Associate Professor at ICTE - International Centre for Transformational Entrepreneurship and Research Associate at CBiS – Centre for Business in Society at Coventry University. She obtained her PhD in Innovation Management and S&T Policy from SPRU at University of Sussex. Her research interests are in technology and innovation management, SMEs and entrepreneurship from a systemic perspective and especially their contribution to economic, social and inclusive growth. She has publications in international journals such as Research Policy, Technological Forecasting and Social Change and Journal of Small Business Management as well as chapters in edited books.
Abstract: This research investigates how inter-organisational learning in networks and Global Value Chains (GVCs) contributed to building sectoral resilience in the Polish food processing and clothing industries. The Polish economy has been widely accepted as a resilient economy since its transition from socialist to a market economy, and even after the 2008 financial crisis. Drawing on the regional resilience literature, we develop a network-oriented conceptual framework based on the concepts of ‘adaptation’ and ‘adaptability’ for sectoral resilience that integrates network evolution, inter-organisational learning in these networks, and the role of history. We use unique primary data collected during the transition period, 1989-2001, which is complemented with secondary data on the networking activities of firms during 2004-2018. We find that the firms’ interactive learning functioned as an important contributor to the path-dependent network trajectories and resilience. We show that knowledge networks and GVCs presented different dynamics in their effects on learning and resulted in uneven sectoral resilience in food and clothing sectors. We discuss types of learning which lead to differences in resilience in these two sectors based on historical data.