“…Besides an increasing tendency towards growing unequalisation (Kadarusman & Nadvi, 2013;Kaplinsky, 2000;Pahl & Timmer, 2020;Zhu & He, 2018), some suppliers in developing countries are found to be be locked in the low end of global supply with the lowest returns and the most intense competitive pressures (Gereffi, 2019;International Labour Office, 2003;Kaplinsky, 1993). Although there is widespread agreement that the most viable response for embedded suppliers is to "innovate and upgrade" -to make better products, make them more efficiently, or move into more skilled activities (Dong & Sun, 2020;Kaplinsky, 2000;Porter, 1990;You & Virtanen, 2020), the question remains of how can local suppliers in developing countries generate more innovation, giving the complex power dynamic context of vertical global supply chain relationship and horizontal market competition.…”