Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
1 Introduction
Since the IC industry in Taiwan developing maturely into the 21st century, next
emerging high-tech industry in Taiwan has already come around the corner that is
“opto-electronics industry.” Thanks to governments' policy planning, “North
(Shin-Chu Science Park, SCSP) IC, South (Southern Taiwan Science Park, STSP)
Opto-electronics,” engines in the high-tech industry have been fuelled by two major
focuses and each of them locates in different Parks. Obviously, each industry has
developed an industry network along with its cluster in the Park. The STSP, for
example in 2006, is homed by more than 38 opto-electronics corporations which
were has been approved by National Science Council, and 29 of them have
production. The total revenue in the STSP has already topped $4,516 hundred
million in 2006. Opto-electronics industry, particularly, has already taken above
71% in the STSP. Sales revenue for opto-electronics industry was NT$3,224
million in 2006, an increase of 16 times over 2001. Corporations in the industry has
benefited from the policy, and part of economic gains coming from the cluster in the
Park. Obviously, the STSP has turned out to be an important cluster of
opto-electronics in Taiwan.
Science Parks have been linked to the economic development of countries and
the creation of local competitive advantages. According to Hakansson and Ford
(2002) point out that there are three paradoxes (e.g. opportunities and limitation in
networks; influence and being influenced in a network; controlling and being
control in networks) that can be detected in a network. Nevertheless, business
cluster is one of the formats of network. This study examine if business clusters
(such as science parks) faced these paradoxes. These three paradoxes give us
insights about there are insistence advantage and risk surrounding the network.
Porter (2000) argues that location as a single factor is losing its competitive
advantage. However, as firms join clusters, the meaning of location in the sense of
firm agglomeration becomes important again. Government set many special areas
to attract foreign investments. Companies also want to gain benefits from Science
Park by means of policy subsidy or cooperation with other firms. The main
motivation of this research is to see if firms can really get the resources they want
from the cluster. In order to understand relationships among optic-electronic firms,
especially in LCD firms, in the STSP, Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach
and related statistics will be used in the research.
According to statements above, we are interested in the following issues related
to the firms in the Southern Taiwan Science Park: 1) the communication patterns
among LCD firms in the STSP and find out the key players in LCD industry, 2) the
relationships between network competency, network position, absorptive capacity
and innovation performance, 3) the effect of network features, such as degree,
betweenness, closeness, coreness, and structural holes etc., on the innovation
performance.
