From mainstream to niche: How value regimes shift in emerging economy upgrading

•Imaginaries - shared theories of value creation - legitimize investing into value regimes.•Value regimes are stable alignments between local investments and global/regional demands.•Mainstream value regimes focus on meeting global standards to achieve scalable success.•Niche value regimes focus on exploiting local specificity to help lower global competition.•Misalignments between imaginaries and material realities may lead to shifts in value regimes.