Institutional, Technological, and Strategic Factors in the Global Integrated-Circuit Industry: The Persistence of Organizational Forms

Technological change and the globalization of industries are forces fundamentally reshaping relationships among countries. These twin forces also strongly influence the competitive environment in which firms are enmeshed and the role their strategies play in the evolution of economies and industries. Understanding the relational dynamics between technological change and globalization on the one hand and country-based institutional and firm-based strategic responses on the other can provide possible explanations as to why industries have evolved into the structures that exist today, as well as offer insights into how these structures will continue to evolve. In our study we observed recursive ebbs and flows between the technological and globalization factors that conditioned the developmental path of a country’s economy, affected the industrial trajectory and competitive environment existing in the integrated-circuit industry, and influenced the survival of firms competing in that industry