• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.1-19
• /
• 2013

As the catch-up innovation system was exposed to a new competition environment in which second-tier catch-up countries reduced the gap with Korea and advanced Korean firms entered into the frontier product market, it is experiencing system delay in terms of organizational and policy change. Therefore, innovation policy needs to be reorganized from a dynamic perspective to analyze the problems in the transition period and enable the system to overcome organizational and institutional delays. This article investigates the characteristics of transition periods in terms of external environment changes and internal socio-economic pressures. Based on the analysis of environment changes and catch-up system characteristics, it suggests the framework for policy intervention, direction, and practical principles for post catch-up innovation policy. In particular, it suggests the network-based developmental state and policy implementation in order to overcome the limitation of centralized developmental state of catch-up periods.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.21-56
• /
• 2016

Despite many previous studies on catch-up, understanding on the effect of product architecture developed by latecomers on the catch-up performance remains limited. On the other hands, in contrast to the semiconductor, ship building, and automotive industry, even if Korean industry and government have invested the development of numerical controllers for machine tools in the past four decades, the industry and government have failed to achieve catch-up. Therefore, we newly examine the effect of product architecture on the catch-up performance of the Korea by implementing comparative research with periods on the evolution of product architecture of Fanuc's numerical controllers, which have achieved the largest market share in the world. We found that Fanuc developed open modular architecture based numerical controllers and provided product with customization of user requirements as well as cost effectiveness. Consequently, Fanuc has sustained market leader position since the mid-1980s. However, despite all the efforts of the industry and government, we found that the Korea failed to develop open modular architecture based numerical controllers and could not achieve significant catch-up performance. Our findings provide important theoretical backgrounds for examining the catch-up performance as well as investigating the reason why latecomers failed to achieve market catch-up even if they accomplished technological catch-up.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.141-167
• /
• 2012

Along with technological innovation, successful market entry of a new product is important for sustainable innovation of a firm. In this paper, we examined factors that affect successful introduction of new branded drugs in pharmaceutical industry. Under competing theories of the first mover's advantage and the late mover's advantage, this research focuses on how latecomers can overcome the disadvantages of late entry and catch up to the market leader. First, late movers can absorb the knowledge leaked from pioneering product during the time lag between early entrants and late entrants. Therefore, the time lag provides late entrants an opportunity to catch-up to market leader by differentiating and improving the quality of new product. Second, superior marketing capability of late entrants can enhance the possibility of catching-up, by overcoming the consumer base of early entrants.

• Journal of East Asia Management
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.43-64
• /
• 2022

Exploring innovations for latecomers to catch up has been a popular concern in industry and academia. Over the last decade, more and more East Asian latecomer firms have moved beyond imitation and are delivering innovative products and services to the market. However, the semiconductor latecomers from China have limited success in catching up with more mature semiconductor firms. Our study examines how semiconductor latecomers to break through the latecomer's dilemma by innovation and achieve catch-up. We use a single-case approach for the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) vertical development process to analysis its innovation path of catching up. The study's results showed that SMIC relied on the government's policy and funding support, and based on the strategic endurance of entrepreneurs, it persisted in technology R&D investment and independent innovation for 20 years. SMIC finally smashed the dilemma of latecomers and successfully achieved catch-up. With these findings, we believe that the path of catching up innovation for semiconductor latecomers should be equipped with independent innovation of technology, strategic leadership of entrepreneurs and support of government policies. As these factors are combined, latecomer firms' position is expected to rise and catch-up will become visible. Our study contributes to some enlightenment on the innovation path for latecomers in China and global semiconductors to achieve their catch-up.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.119-131
• /
• 2015

The rise of K-Pop in the latecomer environment is unusual. There is little research on K-Pop from the catch-up perspective though it would yield some insight into a strategic direction of creative industries in the latecomer environment. Thus, this study aims to compare the firm capability, market development, and product strategy of K-Pop firms with ones of manufacturing firms during the catch-up period. It reveals first that K-Pop firms developed project execution capability to carry out discrete projects effectively by adopting in-house (vertical) system in music production and increasing the size of firms. Second, they pursued global market and utilized the window of opportunities based on a proven music genre. Third, K-Pop firms pursued the incremental innovation in the product development. Since these characteristics have many similarities with the catch-up strategy in the manufacturing sector, Korean catch-up experience could provide valuable insight into the development of creative industries in Korea.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
• /
• v.6 no.2 s.12
• /
• pp.1-44
• /
• 2006

This paper aims to analyse post catch-up innovation activities of Korean firms. Traditional approach focused on incremental innovation through fast catch-up process. Recently, Korean firms present new patterns of innovation activities. It includes the development of state-of-the-art frontier products in capital intensive manufacturing sector, the achievement of architectural innovation through adopting newly developed components and the creation of new market based on the basic technological capabilities. This paper attempts to formulate conceptual framework for analysing post catch-up innovation activities and to analyse stylized facts of post catch-up activities based on the case studies on technology based small and medium Korean firms.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technology Innovation Society Conference
• /
• 2000.11a
• /
• pp.227-245
• /
• 2000

Korean firms have attempted to catch up in the aircraft industry during last quarter century. Korean firms have built up their capabilities by moving from parts manufacturing through subassembly to system integration. The number of projects carried out and the intensity of technological effort undertaken by firms strongly influences market position and firm performance. However, successful catching up is not simply dependent on capability building within the firm. The national environment (Porter, 1990) in which firms are located plays a pivotal role. The Korean government has been effective in creating a favorable environ-ment in many areas, but has not been able to replicate this success in the aircraft industry. Opportunities for learning in the aircraft industry have been hampered by the small size of the Korean civilian aircraft market and the sophisticated requirements of military systems. A policy of domestic rivalry in airframe manufacture has created too many firms for such a small market. The ability of Korean firms to catch up in the aircraft industry depends on both the internal capabilities of firms as well as appropriate government policies and the involve- ment of government research institutions and universities over an extended period of time. There have been many studies about the catching up of developing countries in mass production (such as automobile, consumer electronics, and recently DRAM), but few in complex systems, such as aircraft.

• Knowledge Management Research
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.27-50
• /
• 2016

Korean manufacturing industry have recently faced the catch-up of China in the mass commodity product, such as automotive, display, and smart phone in terms of market as well as technology. Accordingly, discussion on the importance of achieving catch-up in complex product systems (CoPS) has been increasing as a new innovation engine for the industry. In order to achieve successful catch-up of CoPS, we explored emerging technologies of CoPS, which are featured by the characteristics of radical novelty, relatively fast growth and self-sustaining, through the study of emerging technologies of gas turbine for power generation. We found that emerging technologies of the gas turbine are technologies for combustion nozzle and composition of electrical machine for increasing power efficiency, washing technology for particulate matter, cast and material processing technology for enhancing durability from fatigue, cooling technologies from extremely high temperature, interconnection operation technology between renewable energy and the gas turbine for flexibility in power generation, and big data technology for remote monitoring and diagnosis of the gas turbine. We also found that those emerging technologies resulted in technological progress of the gas turbine by converging with other conventional technologies in the gas turbine. It indicates that emerging technologies in CoPS can be appeared on various technological knowledge fields and have complementary relationship with conventional technologies for technology progress of CoPS. It also implies that latecomers need to pursue integrated learning that includes emerging technologies as well as conventional technologies rather than independent learning related to emerging technologies for successful catch-up of CoPS. Our findings provide an important initial theoretical ground for investigating the emerging technologies and their characteristics in CoPS as well as recognizing knowledge management strategy for successful catch-up of latecomers. Our findings also contribute to the policy development of the CoPS from the perspective of innovation strategy and knowledge management.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.97-131
• /
• 2005

This paper has discussed several issues regarding the barriers and opportunities for technological catch-up by the late-comer countries and firms. As one of the barriers to technological catch-up, the paper emphasizes the uncertainty involved with the third stage of learning how to design. The barriers arise because as the forerunner firms refuse to sell or give license to successful catching-up firms who thus have to design the product by themselves. The paper discusses how to overcome this barrier. It also notes that if the crisis of design technology is a push factor for leapfrogging, arrival of new techno-economic paradigm can serve as a pull factor for leapfrogging, serving as a winder of opportunity. The, it emphasized the two risks with leapfrogging, namely the risk of choosing right technology or standards and the risk of creating initial markets, and how to overcome these risks. It discusses how to overcome these risks in leapfrogging, and differentiates diverse forms of knowledge accesses. Then, the paper takes up the issue of whether there can be a single common or several models for catch-up. A common element of catching-up is to enter new markets segments quickly, to manufacture with high levels of engineering excellence, and to be first-to-market by means of the best integrative designs. This observation is supported by the fact that Korea and Taiwan has achieved higher levels of technological capabilities in such sectors as featured by short cycle time of technology. The possibility of two alternative models for catch-up is also discussed in terms of the key difference between Korean and Taiwan, especially in the position toward the source of foreign knowledge and the paths taken toward the final goal of OBM. Taiwan followed the sequential steps of OEM, ODM and OBN, in collaboration or integration with the MNCs. Korean chaebols jumped from OEM directly to OBM even without consolidating design technology.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.147-175
• /
• 2006

One of the biggest problems of Korean economy is polarization of firms for export and domestic demand and that of conglomerates and SME's achievement. One of the culprits lies weakness of intermediate industry such as machine tool. Since intermediate industry is important path where export performance affects domestic demand and whose actor usually is SMEs with high spill over effect in labor market. Especially, intermediate industry Is vulnerable because of industrial policy biased In backward linkage effect. However if a country fails to develop intermediate industry above some critical point, that country would fall in low-tech equilibrium without growth. In case of benign circle where final goods industry growth leads growth of intermediate industry and again it leads that of final goods industry, it can reach high-tech equilibrium. By contrast, in opposite case where in industrialization latecomer fails to link industries likewise above some critical point that country would fall in low-tech equilibrium without growth. Moreover, for several reasons, machine tool firms of Korea have difficulty in catching up technology above critical point. Firstly. Conglomerate demander neglects their product. Secondly, even after success of development overcoming difficulties they fail to get market share for response of dumping of foreign competitors. And the last one is patent litigation of foreign competitors that incapacitate the technology development. For these, Korean machine tool firms fell in 'middle-income country trap' itself, since they stuck in some extent when they technologically catch up. Consequently, for latecomer country in machine tool industry to leapfrog meaningfully policy support is necessary, Weak intermediate industry does not Induce domestic firms and remained fragile. Therefore, localization, policy should reflect condition of technological catch up more than before, in order to be effective and fruitful. There should be turning point over relationship between conglomerates, major demander of machine tool and SME's, for only with active purchasing of conglomerate Korean machine industry can grow.