Race-to-the-Top Strategy Paradigm

Alejandro Ruelas-Gossi, questions the widely accepted paradigm which suggests that emerging countries ought to integrate themselves into global value chains primarily through activities focused on cost reduction, exploitation of natural resources, and low-value added services. This paradigm has led to a race-to-the-bottom among many emerging countries and widened the gap between the developed and developing world. Instead, Alejandro Ruelas-Gossi proposes a race-to-the-top paradigm that is based on the sophistication, or value enhancement, of resources that are distinctively present across regions around the globe and illustrates this new paradigm based on examples from the Basque Country (Spain), Chile, and New Zealand.