Institutional dynamics of developing complex products and systems in Korea

Abstract

The existing study of Complex Products and Systems (CoPS) represents that European countries have more competitiveness comparing to developing countries due to the high requirements of product, system and organizational integration (Davies, 1996; 1998), and especially in telecommunication sector, these requirements are essential (Hobday, 1998; 2000). However, Korea has several experiences of developing CoPS, and this shows Korea achieved technological development successfully, but institutional limitation of catchingup process kept out acquiring global competitiveness. That is, according to the transition from technology using to technology generating, the co-evolution of technology and institution is essentially required (Choung et al., 2006). Recently, the efforts of co-evolutionary institutional restructuring makes Korea become more technologically independent in CoPS and lead global standardization in the telecommunication sector, especially WiBro development case. This paper attempts to observe how Korea succeeds in CoPS development through acquiring technology and learning capability differently comparing to developed countries, and how Korean innovation system appears and affects to the development process uniquely in CoPS. In the process of CDMA and WiBro system development, changes of technology learning process and organizational structure are shown at first. The dominant entity of R&D project is changed from national level to firm level. The focus of R&D is also changed from technology adoption and stabilization to technology creation and other issues such as technological interoperability and standardization. However, the role of R&D project and consortium management in public R&D institute is not changed. Secondly the dynamism of institution change is shown. The limited competitive environment of CDMA is solved in WiBro case by adopting global movement within same unique-standardization strategy. However, Korea still faces with the problems of r...