EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Can Taiwan's second movers upgrade via branding?

Wan-wen Chu

Research Policy, 2009, vol. 38, issue 6, 1054-1065

Abstract: Taiwan, one of the best performers among latecomers, has successfully entered mature high-tech from the 1980s, but has yet to close the technological gap with the West. The paper examines why most of the successful second movers in Taiwan do not pursue R&D-intensive and own-brand strategies to catch up, and whether they may do so in the future. It is argued here that the second mover expands by relying upon accumulated organizational capabilities based on subcontracting manufacturing, hence implying likely path dependence in development. Thus, the strategy of choice for most will be upgrading subcontracting, cross-industry subcontracting, and then own-brand manufacturing, in that order. Among the structural factors affecting the firm's strategic choice, the industrial policy has been a crucial one. South Korea has produced some successful global brands, supported by the state's national champion policy and long-term commitment to the chaebol. The emerging China has also adopted a highly ambitious national champion strategy. The fact that the government in Taiwan has never adopted a national champion strategy helps to partly explain the evolutionary path of Taiwan's second movers, and attests to the importance of industrial policy. Unless Taiwan's policy environment changes significantly, the current trend may continue in the foreseeable future.

Keywords: Own-brand; manufacturing; Subcontracting; Catch; up; East; Asian; latecomers; Taiwan's; second; movers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048-7333(09)00046-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:38:y:2009:i:6:p:1054-1065

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:38:y:2009:i:6:p:1054-1065