The Cross-industry Spillover of Technological Capability: Korea’s DRAM and TFT–LCD Industries

Studies of Korea’s Thin Film Transistor–Liquid Crystal Display (TFT–LCD) industry have emphasized the government policy, industrial organization, and the firm’s strategy as key success factors. However, the fact that knowledge spillover, which tends to occur between highly technologically related industries, can lead to a reduction in innovation effort has been overlooked. We examined the technological relationships between Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and TFT–LCD industries and investigated their spillover into the areas of technology, human resources and organization, and network. The results show spillover in capital control, technology, production and quality management, organizational systems, and key personnel. This implies that spillover effect in high technology firms may diversify their products due to existing technological capabilities.