Managing TFT-LCDs under uncertainty: When crystal cycles meet business cycles

Understanding the correlation between the crystal cycle and the business cycle is important, because it can help managers to anticipate change, reduce environmental uncertainty, and formulate operational objectives. To this end, we focused on China and the U.S. in our analysis. We found that the economic indicators that were the most relevant in the characterization of China's huge and burgeoning TFT-LCD market are gross domestic production and industrial production. We complemented this finding by conducting similar analyses in the U.S. market using a more comprehensive list of economic indicators.     

Social capital and creativity in R&D project teams

The existing research contributes to our understanding about the value of social capital in a wide range of social science disciplines; however, it does not well address the role of social capital in creativity for research and development (R&D) project teams in a given context. Using a sample of 54 R&D project teams in high-technology firms of Taiwan, we examined the impacts of social capital on creativity of R&D project teams from an intra-team perspective. Results of factor analysis revealed four factors extracted from the concept of social capital, namely social interaction, network ties, mutual trust, and shared goals. Findings suggested that social interaction and network ties had significant and positive impacts on creativity of R&D project teams, but mutual trust and shared goals did not. Managerial implications for managing social capital in R&D project teams are discussed.     

Agile strategy adaptation in semiconductor wafer foundries: An example from Taiwan

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and examine how two Taiwanese firms–TSMC and UMC–who compete in the highly dynamic global semiconductor industry, are able to use their unique strategies to create a new wafer foundry sector. The birth of foundry business gave rise to the vertical disintegration of the IC industry. As the foundry industry evolved along its life cycle of embryonic, growth to shake-out stage, the focus of the foundry business migrated from manufacturing-centric to technology-centric and now to customer-centric. Various strategies were adopted at each stage by the incumbents to cope with the changes in the industry environment to sustain business growth.     

Emerging technologies in emerging markets: Introduction to the special section

Emerging technologies have significant implications and profound consequences for firms, markets, government policy, and society as a whole. In emerging markets, however, social uncertainties are as important as technological and market uncertainties, and moreover are somewhat more complex. The papers in this special section offer views of how these important social uncertainties can be considered concurrently with technological and market uncertainties, particularly because they play a relatively larger role in emerging markets than in more advanced markets.     

Policy System in Taiwan's Industrial Context

Drawing on institutional analysis of politics, this paper proposes a concept of policy system that is then applied empirically to Taiwan's industrial context of 1986–95. Contemporary political sciences now identify the institutionalization of state-business relations. Accounts differ, but generally they retain a strong sense of conventional rules in the formulation and implementation of industry policy. While taking this idea of rules seriously, we extend institutional perspectives on politics from the familiar confines of structural constraints to the institutional context of resources. Thus, a policy system is socially constructed with a variety of rules and resources, appreciable in the Taiwanese context.     

Environmental jolts, entrepreneurial actions and value creation: A case study of Trend Micro

This paper draws on a single longitudinal case study of Trend Micro, a leading anti-virus company, to examine its entrepreneurial, value-creating trajectory. Applying and extending an entrepreneurship perspective, the paper manifests positive effect, rather than negative effect, of environmental jolt on entrepreneurial actions including opportunity identification and opportunity exploitation. We find that environmental jolt is likely to shift customers' cognition, which is an important source of opportunity and, in turn, catalyzes opportunity exploitation through innovations for value creation. The paper concludes with a model of the value-creating trajectory of Trend Micro. Implications for research and practices are discussed.     

A New Framework Integrating Environmental Effects into Technology Evaluation

This study aims to propose a framework considering both economic issues and environmental effects in technology evaluation in order to provide firms’ decision makers a useful reference in adopting technologies that will enable them to fulfill corporate social responsibilities and get competitive advantages at the same time. Recently, the demands for technology evaluation have increased with the flourishing development of technology licensing, technology transaction or joint venture on the one hand and with the pressing needs of environmental protection for human beings’ sustainable development on the other hand. Under such conditions, it thus goes without saying that firms’ decision makers are propelled to take into account both economic benefits and environmental effects in evaluating technologies by choosing low or nonpolluting technologies for manufacturing products. Although technology evaluation is not a new and emerging subject currently besetting scholars in the field of management, previous research on this topic has unwittingly left behind the pressing issue of environmental effects. Based on this observation, this study purports to develop a new framework for technology evaluation by taking both economic benefits and environmental perspectives into consideration. In it, we seek to demonstrate that our proposed framework will not only be a workable model but also can serve as a useful point of reference for technology appraisers and firms’ decision makers.