Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
12.4.6 Testing the Cluster Dynamics Model
The above discussion lays out a life-cycle model for cluster dynamics. This model
is conceptual and rests upon interpretive analyses and hypotheses derived from the
literature. In this regard it begs for careful evaluation and testing of not only the
interpretations of how the seven dimensions of clusters vary with the different
stages of the model but also how they are linked to one another. Carrying out this
work is a large challenge and for sure not one that can be addressed fully in this
paper. A case study of the Korean Shipbuilding Industry is now presented and its
development is interpreted from the life-cycle perspective that has been offered in
this paper.
12.5
The Korean Shipbuilding Cluster: Assessing the Dynamics
of this Cluster
12.5.1 Background: The Korean Shipbuilding Cluster
The shipbuilding industry in Korea is the largest and most advanced in the world
(Shin and Hassink
2011
).
3
Its roots can be traced to the nineteenth century where
small and medium size wooden boats were built along the southeast coast of Korea
in the areas of Geoje, Changwon, Busan and Ulsan. A Japanese company
established a shipyard near Busan in the 1880s which the authors view as the
start of the modern Korean shipbuilding industry. The Japanese brought new steel
shipbuilding knowhow to the region. Subsequently and throughout the colonial
period (1910-1945) there was a near continuous flow of Japanese shipbuilders to
the Southeast coastal part of the Korean peninsula but the associated expanded
investment in infrastructure still focused on small and a few medium sized ships.
From 1880 to 1945 the industry which mainly built small and medium sized ships
and boats and was maintained in this way. The industry was sustained but exhibited
no major changes until about 1970.
In the 1970s as part of a series of national 5 year economic plans emphasizing
machinery and heavy industry focused investment from the private sector(s) in the
automobile and shipbuilding industries was motivated in part by public sector
investment in not only infrastructure but also in private companies. This policy
initiative in collaboration with Hyundai, Daewoo and Samsung
chaebol
companies
laid plans and began to produce large ships such as oil and LNG carriers.
Technologies were obtained from other places for the start-up phase of the newly
invigorated industry. These were soon internalized and with subsequent
3
Much of the following description of the evolution of the Korean shipbuilding industry is taken
from the paper by Shin and Hassink (
2011
) and from discussions with senior Korean informed
decision makers and leaders such as Dr. Kunmo Chung (2013 and 2014, multiple personal
communications) who was the founding director of KAIST and the founder of the Korean Nuclear
power industry during several visits to Korea in 2013.
