Emerging digital technology as a window of opportunity and technological leapfrogging: catch-up in digital TV by the Korean firms

Abstract

This paper has examined the leapfrogging thesis with the case of catch-up in digital TV by the Korean firms. Despite the disadvantages implied by the technological regime of digital TV and the risks facing early entrants in trajectory choice and initial market formation, the Korean firms had achieved a Lpath-creating catch-upX in the sense they chose a different path from the Japanese forerunning firms.As they have been closely watching the technological trends and the standard setting process, there was less risk of choosing the right or wrong technological trajectory. Also, despite the lack of sufficient capability and core knowledge base, the Korean firms had some complementary asset, such as the experience of producing analogue TV, and were able to develop the prototype digital TV and the ASIC chips, given the accesses to the foreign knowledge via overseas R&D posts and acquisition of a foreign company. To secure the initial market size, the Korean targeted the US market from the beginning, and their sources for competitive advantages were the speedy setting up the production system for mass production of products at the initial stage.The initial failure of the Japanese firms and the success of the Korean firms do suggest that the period of paradigm shift, like this toward digital technology, can serve as a window of opportunity for those late-comers who are equipped with the capability to create complementary assets for grabbing new technological opportunity while penalizing the forerunner.

Post catch-up with market cultivation and product servicising: case of Taiwan’s transportation equipment industries

“…Developmental stage and post catch-up: The literature on technological catch-up has paid particular attention to such an issue as how latecomers climb the technological ladder and eventually overtake the forerunner by approaching the technological frontier (Lee and Kim 2001;Hobday et al 2004;Lee et al 2005). Following this, catch-up, leapfrogging, and/or postcatch-up often occur in a phased manner, referring particularly to different stages in the product lifecycle (Lee 2005).…”

“…In these ways, the market and developmental trajectory are generally well-explored and/ or well-defined by the leading player in the advanced country. More recently, increasing attention has been paid, especially by scholars of technology management, to an issue whether or not a latecomer can leapfrog or outcompete its advanced counterparts by approaching the technological frontier (Lee and Lim 2001;Hobday, Rush, and Bessant 2004;Lee, Lim, and Song 2005) or at least level the playing field with the existing leading player in an emerging sector (Choung, Hwang, and Song 2014).…”

“…More recently, increasing attention has been paid, especially by scholars of technology management, to an issue whether or not a latecomer can leapfrog or outcompete its advanced counterparts by approaching the technological frontier (Lee and Lim 2001;Hobday et al 2004;Lee et al 2005) or at least level the playing field with the existing leading player in an emerging sector (Choung et al 2014). Hwang and Choung (2013) go further to initiate discussions on the possibility and framework condition for post catch-up by a latecomer.…”

“…Long ago, Perez and Soete (1988) proposed a leapfrogging scenario where emerging technological paradigms serve as a window of opportunity for catching-up countries that are not locked into the old technological system to grab the new opportunity to surge in the emerging industries (see also Amsden and Chu 2003;Lee 2005;Lee et al 2005). Lee (2005) has identified two risks associated with leapfrogging, namely the risk of choosing right technology and the risk of initial market creation.…”

Local context and innovation in China

“…Such discontinuities mean all industry players must start from similar starting points (e.g., electric-vehicle development) (Lee and Malerba 2017). A 'demand' window, moreover, can shake up pre-existing consumer-demand structures as well as the industrial product life cycle, while technological windows explain the application of new technologies in advancing the products and processes of different industries (Lee et al 2005). Moreover, in the early stages of an industry's lifecycle, an 'entrepreneurial' regime dominates its development and favours new product features and designs, as well as new entries.…”