THE GLOBAL REORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE WORK: THE RISE OF INDIA AND CHINA

Martin Kenney (Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis)

Rafiq Dossani (Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis) 

In the last decade, China and India have begun a transition from doing low-skill manufacturing and simple software programming to work of
greater knowledge-intensity and, in more than a few cases, sophisticated global or near global-class R&D. Given their surfeit of trained scientific engineering talent and their now burgeoning markets, their advance is likely to shift the global balance in high-technology from the European and European settler states to those two nations. This paper explores this changing balance and argues that these two nations need not be exceptions and that other developing nations can also participate in these changes. The discussion speculates on the possibility of Mexico
participating more fully in this shift.