Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
12.5.8 Convergence
It may be argued that the shipbuilding cluster was approaching deep and pervasive
convergence among its industrial organizations in the late 1990s as argued above
that the cluster was moving toward Exhaustion at this time. There were many
indicators that the cluster was at best in the latter part of the Exploitive Expansion
stage if not already in the Exhaustion stage at that time However, government and
business cooperation then led to restructuring of the cluster's industry organizations
into more entrepreneurial and efficient agents. As such the convergence tendency of
the late 1990s was reversed and rejuvenation leading to Exploratory Expansion was
achieved.
12.6 Discussion
The dimensional analysis of the Korean shipbuilding cluster provides several
confirming if not new insights into cluster dynamics. It illustrates that such an
analysis can surface in an analytical way deviations from the basic cluster life-cycle
model. The deceleration of cluster growth identified in the late 1990s was a
significant structural deviation that can either be interpreted as a temporary wrinkle
in the progression of the life-cycle or as prematurely reaching the end of the cycle or
stasis. If the latter interpretation is accepted then the subsequent renewal may be
viewed as moving or recycling the cluster back to the Exploratory Expansion stage.
If the former interpretation is accepted then the renewal may be viewed as simply
putting the cluster back on the development path and thus in the Exploitive
Expansion stage. That nearly all of the cluster dimensions indicated that the cluster
was nearing Exhaustion in the late 1990s suggests the cluster was nearing the end of
its cycle. If only several of the dimensions exhibited behavior indicative of stasis
then the crisis may be interpreted as an aberration away from the maturation process
that the life-cycle model offers.
In addition to providing evidence that the cluster apparently approached the end
of the life-cycle and apparently was rejuvenated there are other useful elements of
the case that life-cycle dimensional analysis helps to identify. One of these is that it
shows that the Korean governance style and culture results in the ever present role
of the national government throughout the cluster life cycle. Yet, the presence of
government in cluster development seems to have been moderate during the initial
Exploratory Expansion stage. Also, the analysis provides insight into how a cluster
comes into being based on the Shin and Hassink (
2011
) historical analysis which
showed the early infrastructure preconditions that propelled subsequent Japanese
investment and later the adoption of shipbuilding as a national strategic develop-
ment priority. In this case the coastal location of early shipbuilding may be viewed
as a critical initial factor leading to the later development of the industry. However,
it does not explain why it began in the southeast coastal region rather than other
parts of coastal Korea. Additional analysis is needed to determine if the initial
conditions also included some environmental factors (for example, favorable sea
