Globalization, institutions, and industry development: A case study of the personal computer industry in Korea and Taiwan (China)

This thesis aims to understand different patterns of local personal computer industry development in Korea and Taiwan and find out how global and local factors (local firms' strategies as well as government policies) have shaped the patterns of industry development, focusing on the issue of how PC firms in both countries have accumulated their technology capabilities and have restructured their business since the 1980s. Arguing that the insufficient attention has given to the role of private firms and their external linkages for technology and market in the literature on East Asian industrial development, this case study on local information industry development in Korea and Taiwan tries to modify a static understanding on the role of state by examining how state, local capital, and transnational capital have formed possibilities for industry development and how their relationship has changed. This thesis has insisted that, in spite of the continuing importance of state intervention, local firms and transnational capital have played increasingly important roles for local information industry development in Korea and Taiwan, as a result of increasing globalization and the growth of local industry and local firms' capabilities. After investigating how the global PC production networks have provided both opportunities and constraints to Korean and Taiwanese PC industry development, this thesis has seen how the differences in industry structure (dominance of big firms and vertically integrated production networks within each firm in Korea vs. dominance of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and horizontal production networks in Taiwan) have led PC firms in Korea and Taiwan to develop different kinds of technology capabilities (mass production of standardized and capital intensive products in Korea vs. speedy and flexible responses to changes in technology and market demand in Taiwan) and adopt different ways of restructuring (key component development in Korea vs. building up efficient offshore production networks in Taiwan).