Year

1993

Degree Name

Master of Commerce (Hons.)

Department

Department of Management

Abstract

This report is focused on assessing the global or international competitiveness generated by the Partnerships for Development Program (PDP) introduced in 1989, which is an agreement between multinationals operating in Australia in the Information Technology (I.T.) industry and the Commonwealth Government so as to harness the efforts of multinationals as a consequence of their Offset activities by agreeing to undertake an agreed level of R&D, expons and local componentry of production. The aim of the program is to foster strategic alliances between local firms and multinationals and generally sharpen the former's international competitiveness and that of the industry as a whole. The program also aims at making Australia an integral part of corporate global operations of the multinationals and at the same time develop the local industry. There is a commitment on the part of the government too, to stimulate infrastructure development. In this report, the concept of international competitiveness, globalisation, trends in globalisation, evolution of global industries, the theory of the multinational corporation, types of their activities, characteristics of the global industry, the role of government, the competition for integrated foreign direct investment, competition in the global IT industry, the Australian IT industry, Australia's competitiveness are focused upon. The PDP, is explained in detail and the results of questionnaires sent to multinational partners and local firms along with interview responses and information from secondary sources are presented in detail, followed by analysis and conclusions of the study. The PDP has no equivalent anywhere in the world so direct comparisons to assess the intemat ional competitiveness created by it are not possible. Again assessing the impact of one single program on the competitiveness of an industry is subject to the cause and effect phenomenon making it hard to pin point results. Moreover, though a number of parameters of measuring international competitiveness are present, data directiy relevant to the IT industry are not readily available.

Download

Share

COinS
 

Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.