Learning to Innovate — Korean Style: The Case of Samsung

Mark Dodgson () and Youngsoo Kim
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Mark Dodgson: Director, Managing Business in Asia Program, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
Youngsoo Kim: Australia-Japan Research Centre, Australian National University, Australia

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 1997, vol. 01, issue 01, 53-71

Abstract: Large Korean electronics companies are confronted by the enormous challenges of technological leadership. Past reliance on technology acquired overseas is no longer a viable strategy for those Korean electronics firms which have caught up with the rest of the world in the development of key technologies. No company has faced these challenges more keenly than the $62 billion Samsung Group. From a highly centralised and bureaucratic organisation with almost entirely Korean-based production, Samsung is in the process of transforming itself into the flexible, trans-national organisation necessary to compete in the next century. From a company dependent upon overseas technology and licenses, Samsung has developed advanced R&D capabilities and is developing the innovation management skills needed to compete as a technological leader. This transformation has to occur on a substantial scale and is difficult and incomplete. Samsung has traditionally been a conservative and bureaucratic company: characteristics unhelpful to innovation. This paper analyses the major factors driving the need to improve technology and innovation management in Samsung and the ways in which it is learning to innovate. It describes how this new learning about the need for innovation is beginning to manifest itself in new innovation management practices.

Keywords: Samsung; technological learning; innovation management; overseas production networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1142/S1363919697000048

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