Technological Catching-up and Latecomer Strategy: A Case Study of the Asian Shipbuilding Industry

This paper investigates the role of imitation and innovation in technological catching-up. On the one hand, excessive innovation and no imitation can never provide latecomers with absorptive capacity to embark on catching-up along the existing technological trajectory. On the other hand, excessive imitation and no innovation can debilitate the ability of latecomer firms to leapfrog incumbents by creating a new trajectory and further reducing the technological gap. Thus, we argue that successful technological catching-up in the long term can hardly be achieved without a fine balance between imitation and innovation at the early stage of catching-up. We also propose that occurrence of technological uncertainty at the later stage of catching-up allows latecomers with such balance to * Main author, Ph.D. Student, Sloan School of Management, MIT (sunenxi@gmail. com) ** Coauthor, Master Candidate, The College of Business Administration, Seoul National University (csy0103@snu.ac.kr) *** Corresponding Author, Professor of International Business, The Graduate School of Business & the College of Business Administration, Seoul National University (jsong@snu.ac.kr) Acknowledgement: This research was funded from the Institute of Management Research at Seoul National University. 26 Seoul Journal of Business realize radical technological leapfrogging. By conducting a case study on the shipbuilding industry in the 20 century, we find supporting evidence that validates our argument.