The purpose of this thesis is to examine the process by which the Korean high technology industries could accumulated their technological capabilities and the strategic decisions that led their development process. This study analyzes three cases of large-scale research and development (R&D) projects as follow :
1) the development project of the Time Division Exchange (TDX) in the korean telecommunications equipment industry,
2) the development project of the Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) memory devices in the semiconductor industry, and
3) the development project of the super-mini computers for the government administrative information system in the computers industry.
These are the typical examples of the large-scale R&D projects in the high technology industries in Korea. The comparative case analysis is required to obtain valuable policy implications for managing other large-scale technology development projects.
First of all, it reviews the related literatures, such as the management of technological innovation, technology strategy, and project management. Based on the literature review, it suggests a systematic model for the strategic management of large-scale R&D projects and provides several research propositions regarding the model.
Next, it analyzes the background and the start of each project and the technology development processes of three high technology industries using the Lee et al.'s global model for developing countries.
In order to analyze the critical factors of the technology development process, it compares the technology strategies and management system of three projects using the suggested model for strategic management of large-scale projects. As the result, three underlying principles behind the technology development processes of the high technology industries in Korea were identified; the focused-and-phased, the buy-for make, and the collaboration-and-competition approaches. By these approches which are related with the dimensions of technology strategy, the Korean hi-tech industries could achieve the technological growth and adapt to the technological and environmental changes dynamically.
Based on these findings, the extended model and related hypotheses are presented. In addition, it provides the systems or planning large-scale projects.
The major theoretical contribution of this study is to derive the dimensions of technology strategy which consist of technology selection, technology acquisition, and technology exploitation in the context of the Korean hi-tech industries. Though they are derived and analyzed on the nation or industry level, they can be applied on other levels such as corporate or business level with some modifications. The model for the strategic management of large-scale projects involves the technology strategy and management systems which is composed of business management, technology management, and organization and personnel management. Although many nations begun the large-scale R&D projects, there were few studies on the strategic management of projects. This model for the strategic management of large-scale projects will provoke the future theoretical development.
Another theoretical contribution is the extended application of Lee et al.'s global model to the hi-tech industries. The longitudinal analysis of the technology development processes in the hi-tech industries shows the similar patterns and stages of technology development as described in the global model. It represents that the global model can explain the dynamic development patterns and the major and revolutionary innovations of the hi-tech industries. Moreover, the analysis shows that technology strategy is very interrelated with the technology development process. In other words, technology strategy is the one of the major underlying factors determing the technology development process while the former must be dynamically adapted according to the technology accumulation.
The comparative and longitudinal analysis provides several policy implications for developing countries as follow.
1) Because developing countries have limited R&D resources, they must invest their resources to the carefully selected sectors which have great potential of competitive advantages and spill-over effects. Therefore, they must analyze the technology development goals and the critical factors for success and prepare the phased plans.
2) In order to reduce the time for technology development, it is very important to absorb and internalize the imported technologies from the more developed countries. However, the parallel pursuit of technology import and in-house development in the early stages is more important because it helps them select more appropriate technologies and use them creatively.
3) Especially for developing countries to fully utilize their scarce resources and to share the risks, collaborative development is an important technology strategy. However, it is difficult for the competing firms to collaborate voluntarily because of the uncertainties and risks of technology development. So the roles fo government to lead and manage the early stage of large-scale innovation process are important. In the late stage, however, the government's role must be changed to the support and encouragement of technological advancement.
4) The introduction of competition among participants of collaborative R&D can speed up the collaborative development process and improve the quality of outputs. However, the collaboration and competition must be balanced according to the accumulation of technological capabilities and be supported by the fair evaluation and coordination mechanisms.
This is an exploratory study on the technology strategy and technology development process of a newly industializing country. Since it is difficult to measure the performance of the large-scale projects, the causal relationship between technology strategy and technology development process could not be explained explicitly. This is because it deals with unstructured and broad areas and the research methodology and hypotheses are not strict. It is necessary to replicate this study in other large-scale projects and countries to enhance the external validity. Therefore, more case studies and further theoretical works would be very helpful in understanding the nature and underlying principles of the technology development processes and in formulating technology strategies and policies.
