(A) study on the technology development process and success of industrial process innovation

Abstract

Lee et al. (1988) extend Utterback and Abernathy’s (1975) dynamic model of process and product innovation into a global perspective model (Lee, 1978). A global perspective model provides a link between developed and developing countries’ technology development processes (Bae and Lee, 1986; Hoskisson et al., 2000). This model finds the reverse direction of developing countries’ technology development processes compared with the direction of developed countries’ technology development processes. Developing countries follow technology development processes such as technology introduction, technology internalization, and technology generation stages. Previous technology development process studies of Korean firms focused on the technology internalization stage from 1980s to the present (Bae, 1984, 1987; Gil, 2002; Bong, 2004). Technology development process studies about the technology internalization stage contributed to both academia and business because they clearly explained the situation and gave strategic insights to Korean firms. Since the 1990s, some leading Korean firms have developed world-class product and process technologies. However, there has been little proper theory and study to explain technology development processes in the technology generation stage, or the transition from technology development latecomers to technology leaders (Choung, 1998; Geels, 2002). Hobday et al. (2004) raise an issue that “there has been surprisingly little research on East Asian transition issues, given the number of firms which appear to be approaching the technology frontier.” There have been many studies on industrial innovation success and failure that expand factors and further discussions on limitations and improvements, but our understanding is still limited (Freeman and Soete, 1997). Most studies focus mainly on product innovation factors that can differentiate between success and failure of product innovations but do not pay much attention to process in...