This book aims to promote an understanding of the origins and dynamics of the software industry in a number of key emerging markets - Brazil, China, India and Israel, and to establish what experiences, if any, are potentially replicable in other prevailing markets. In-depth interviews with leading players in the industry are combined with other new data to provide a comparative study of the dynamics of the sector in emerging markets, to emphasise the public policy implications of these developments, and place them in a wider international context. The last 25 years have seen an explosive growth in the software industry, which is still overwhelmingly dominated by firms from North America and Europe. The authors argue that a number of companies from emerging markets have made significant headway and have even consolidated their positions on account of major cost advantages. They go on to explain the factors behind these developments, and conclude that the software industry, through its ability to project good corporate governance, its lack of hierarchy and widespread use of motivating working practices and compensation schemes, has proved a powerful example to other sectors in these emerging market economies. This book will be of immense interest to both academics and practitioners with an interest in development economics or technology.

A central feature of modern Asia that trumps differences in economic and political systems is the web of close relationships running between and within business and politics; the connections world. These networks facilitate highly transactional interactions yielding significant reciprocal benefits. Although the connections world has not as yet seriously impeded Asia's economic renaissance, it comes with significant costs and fallibilities. These include the creation and entrenchment of huge market power and the attenuation of competition. They in turn hold back the growth in productivity and innovation that will be essential for further development. The connections world also breeds massive inequalities that may culminate in political instability. The authors argue that if Asia's claim to the 21st century is not to be derailed, major changes must be made to policy and behaviour so as to cut away the foundations of the connections world and promote more sustainable economic and political systems.

A central feature of modern Asia that trumps differences in economic and political systems is the web of close relationships running between and within business and politics; the connections world. These networks facilitate highly transactional interactions yielding significant reciprocal benefits. Although the connections world has not as yet seriously impeded Asia's economic renaissance, it comes with significant costs and fallibilities. These include the creation and entrenchment of huge market power and the attenuation of competition. They in turn hold back the growth in productivity and innovation that will be essential for further development. The connections world also breeds massive inequalities that may culminate in political instability. The authors argue that if Asia's claim to the 21st century is not to be derailed, major changes must be made to policy and behaviour so as to cut away the foundations of the connections world and promote more sustainable economic and political systems.