The purpose of this thesis is to explore the different types of external linkage strategy and to examine how firm characteristics such as strategy, environment, top management characteristics, and performance are different among the various types in business level analysis. Also, this study examined different patterns of technological collaboration with their key success factors (KSFs) in project level analysis.
The deductive approach by reviewing the existing literature was used for categorizing the types of external linkage strategy by two criteria: nature of key resources(technology or market) and the number of external linkage use(passive or active). Several hypothesis were derived from the conceptual framework and inductive analysis at the industry level. Similarly, this study classified the patterns of technological collaboration as 4 types by two criteria: development motive (technology push or market pull) and source of initiation (focal firm or partner).
The data for this research were collected from a questionnaire survey with interview on 137 SMEs in the Korean electronics components industry. Also the project level analysis were performed, using data from 82 projects in this industry.
Major findings of this thesis can be summarized as followed: 1) Four types of external linkage strategy showed significantly different strategy(innovative differentiation, cost leadership, technical development capability, production capability, strategy change), environment, top management characteristics(size of top management, age of top manager, past performance(profit rate), firm size, and firm performance(profit rate).
2) The context in which the firm profit rate of type II(market resources and active linkage) was low was related with high technical development capability, high product diversity, and low change of product market domain. The growth rate of Type I firm was high in the context of long period in employ of the top manager in this industry while one of Type IV was high in the context of high product diversity.
3) In technological collaboration, the bivariate relationship revealed that project characteristics (technical complexity, demand certainty, strategic importance), partner characteristics(the number of partners), management practices(the role of focal firm, user firm, and university or research institute), and success rate were different among four types of collaboration.
4) Each type of collaborative R&D projects also had different KSFs. The KSFs of type I (technology push and focal firm initiation), for instance, include the strategic importance, cost share of focal firm, the roles of user firm and university or research institute, while those of type IV (market pull and partner initiation) are specificity of process and outcome, commitment of the focal firm, and information sharing.
Based on these findings, this study discussed managerial, policy, and theoretical implications for external activities in the Korean electronics parts industry.
