Transition of Latecomer Firms from Technology Users to Technology Generators: Korean Semiconductor Firms

Transitions of Innovation Activities in Latecomer Countries: An Exploratory Case Study of South Korea

“…The latecomer countries' transition process is concerned on securing the core/dynamic capabilities and technological leadership. A few studies started to focus on the generation of new technologies (Choung, Hwang, Choi, & Rim, 2000), creation of new paths of innovation (Lee & Lim, 2001;Whang & M Hobday, 2011), and strategizing technological leadership (Hobday et al, 2004;Mathews & Hu, 2007) from the perspective of the latecomer firms.…”

“…Rather than undertake serial development from the design to the test process, engineers in each function concurrently participated in all stages of development, which allowed them to spot technical issues early and solve them jointly. Samsung Electronics accumulated fast problem-solving ability by creating a separate organization in charge of integrating the design and production (Choung et al, 2000;Hwang, 1999). This integration of development and production led to a system that can predict the yield in advance even from the test production line and shorten the problem-solving period at the development stage (Shin & Jang, 2006).…”

Using patent data to analyze the development of the next generation of solar cells

“…2. Measuring a company's technical abilities: Jaffe [15] used patent analysis to characterize the technological position of U.S. manufacturing firms; Choung et al [6] investigated the evolution of the technological capabilities of Korean semiconductor firms. 3.…”

Standards as catalyst for national innovation and performance – a capability assessment framework for latecomer countries

“…As Choi, Lee, and Sung (2011) point out, there are growing public policies and academic literature that perceive standardisation as a catalyst for national or company innovation by facilitating access to markets and enabling interoperability between new and existing technologies, products, services, and processes (Blind, 2009;DIUS, 2009;Farrell & Saloner, 1985;Galvin & Rice, 2008;Kano, 2000;Swann & Britain, 2000). For these reasons, emerging late-comer countries, like Korea and China, have considered standards a strategic mechanism for their transition from technology-based rule users or followers to rule generators in the international market (Choung, Hwang, & Choi, 2000;Choung, Ji, & Hameed, 2011;Lee & Oh, 2008).…”