Information technology and electronics firms from Taiwan Province of China in the United Kingdom: Emerging trends and implications

This article examines the modal choices, key activities and motivations of non-dominant information technology and electronics firms from Taiwan Province of China in the United Kingdom, against the backdrop of recent trends in the global economy. Its main findings include the limited prospects of the sample firms' evolution into manufacturing activity in the United Kingdom and the increasing importance of inter-firm logistics collaboration. Among the key policy implications discussed in the article are: the need for appropriate measures to support the United Kingdom's positioning as a gateway to, and a preferred base for intelligence gathering on, other European markets; the need for "high-wage" advanced economies to capitalize upon their not-easily-replicable location-specific advantages (e.g. reputable research-anddevelopment clusters; substantial domestic market) in targeting foreign direct investment in the research and development, design and sales-related areas; and the importance of a more balanced investment attraction strategy that actively targets major global players (and their capacity to attract secondary inward investment) without compromising support for indigenous growth companies. Future research should pay greater attention to the intra-regional, rather than intra-country, context of firms' evolution in international markets

Manufacturing Sectoral Growth in the USA and Japan: Relevance to SMEs, Organizational Innovations, and Recent Economic Growth

Although economic growth is inherently linked with the structure and nature of SMEs (e.g. their number, industry concentration, size, degree of outsourcing, etc), as this has been shown in the existing literature, OIs, more generally, are the context in which SMEs operate and hence OIs ought to be more closely examined in order to further understand the complex process of economic growth and the particular impact of SMEs on the latter. In this paper, a detailed comparison of the growth of manufacturing sectors in the USA and Japan is used as an indirect way to demonstrate the following proposition. Although SMEs have played a positive role in the postwar economic Japanese miracle, they are not a sufficient force for a sustainable economic growth, as the recent protracted recession in Japan shows. It is only when technological innovations and in particular OIs take place in the economy that this type of growth is possible, as this is also demonstrated in the recent American prolonged economic growth.organizational innovations, disembodied technology, firms, economic growth, historical review

An evolutionary stage model of outsourcing and competence destruction : a Triad comparison of the consumer electronics industry

Outsourcing has gained much prominence in managerial practice and academic discussions in the last two decades or so. Yet, we still do not understand the full implications of outsourcing strategy for corporate performance. Traditionally outsourcing across borders is explained as a cost-cutting exercise, but more recently the core competency argument states that outsourcing also leads to an increased focus, thereby improving effectiveness. However, no general explanation has so far been provided for how outsourcing could lead to deterioration in a firm‟s competence base. We longitudinally analyze three cases of major consumer electronics manufacturers, Emerson Radio from the U.S., Japan‟s Sony and Philips from the Netherlands to understand the dynamic process related to their sourcing strategies. We develop an evolutionary stage model that relates outsourcing to competence development inside the firm and shows that a vicious cycle may emerge. Thus it is appropriate to look not only at how outsourcing is influenced by an organization‟s current set of competences, but also how it alters that set over time. The four stages of the model are offshore sourcing, phasing out, increasing dependence on foreign suppliers, and finally industry exit or outsourcing reduction. The evolutionary stage model helps managers understand for which activities and under which conditions outsourcing across borders is not a viable option. Results suggest that each of these firms had faced a loss of manufacturing competitiveness in its home country, to which it responded by offshoring and then outsourcing production. When a loss of competences occurred, some outsourcing decisions were reversed

Innovative Tokyo

This paper compares and contrasts Tokyo's innovation structure with the industrial districts model and the international hub model in the literature on urban and regional development. The Tokyo model embraces and yet transcends both industrial districts and international hub models. The paper details key elements making up the Tokyo model-organizational knowledge creation, integral and co-location systems of corporate R&D and new product development, test markets, industrial districts and clusters, participative consumer culture, continuous learning from abroad, local government policies, the national system of innovation, and the historical genesis of Tokyo in Japan's political economy. The paper finds that the Tokyo model of innovation will continue to evolve with the changing external environment, but fundamentally retains its main characteristics. The lessons from the Tokyo model is that openness, a diversified industrial base, the continuing development of new industries, and an emphasis on innovation, all contribute to the dynamism of a major metropolitan region.Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,ICT Policy and Strategies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Innovation

Change and Transformation in Asian Industrial Relations

Authors argue that industrial relations systems change due to shifts in the constraints facing those systems, and that the most salient constraints facing IR systems in Asia have shifted from those of maintaining labor peace and stability in the early stages of industrialization, to those of increasing both numerical and functional flexibility in the 1980s and 1990s. The evidence to sustain the argument is drawn from seven “representative” Asian IR systems: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, and China. They also distinguish between systems that have smoothly adapted (Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines) and systems that have fundamentally transformed (China and South Korea), and hypothesize about the reasons for this difference

VLSI Revisited - Revival in Japan

This paper describes the abundance of semiconductor consortia that have come into existence in Japan since the mid-1990s. They clearly reflect the ambition of the government - through its reorganized ministry METI and company initiatives - to regain some of the industrial and technological leadership that Japan has lost. The consortia landscape is very different in Japan compared with EU and the US. Outside Japan the universities play a much bigger and very important role. In Europe there has emerged close collaboration, among national government agencies, companies and the EU Commission in supporting the IT sector with considerable attention to semiconductor technologies. Another major difference, and possibly the most important one, is the fact that US and EU consortia include and mix partners from different areas of the semiconductor landscape including wafer makers, material suppliers, equipment producers and integrated device makers.semiconductors, Hitachi, Sony, Toshiba, Elpida, Renesas, Sematech, VLSI, JESSI, MEDEA, ASPLA, MIRAI, innovation system

Responses to the Crisis Constraints to a Rapid Trade Adjustment in East Asia�s Electronics Industry

It has been argued that “… trade adjustment in East Asia…will be rapid and sizable, lifting aggregate growth in these economies even as the domestic non-tradable sectors continue to suffer a decline (as in Mexico)” (World Bank, 1998, p.5). Much hope has been pinned on the electronics industry to come through with rapid growth through expanding exports. Two arguments appear to bolster such an expectation: the severity of the region´s currency depreciations has lowered the cost of much of its electronics supply base relative to its competitors; and the electronics industry´s proven track record as an engine of export-led growth shows that it can be quickly started and accelerated in response to changes in the market. However, no export boom in electronics has (as yet) materialized. The paper analyzes what explains this puzzle. We first introduce a taxonomy of East Asia´s electronics firms and market segments to distinguish different capacities to ride out the crisis. We then discuss three barriers to an East Asian export boom in electronics: i) supply-side constraints that result from limited access to trade finance, and from the cost-increasing impact of local currency depreciations in highly import-dependent countries; ii) demand-related constraints, resulting from deteriorating growth perspectives in East Asia´s electronics export markets; and iii) deflationary pricing pressures, resulting from a narrow specialization in high-tech commodities that are characterized by periodic surplus capacity and price wars. Combined, these barriers have produced a vicious circle: once exports increase, net volume gains are likely to be offset by pricing losses.Crisis; industrial dynamics; specialization; deflation; Asia; electronics industry