Global Taiwan: Building Competitive Strengths in a New International Economy
Global Taiwan: Building Competitive Strengths in a New International Economy
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DOI：
10.4324/9781315704050
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发表时间：
2015-02
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
S. Berger;R. Lester
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
S. Berger;R. Lester
全球化为企业创造了前所未有的机遇和挑战。为了探索企业如何应对全球化，来自麻省理工学院社会科学、工程和管理系的研究人员团队在麻省理工学院工业绩效中心共同进行了为期四年的研究。 1999年至2003年期间，研究小组对企业管理者以及政府和学术界人士进行了629次访谈。采访在东亚、美国和欧洲进行，其中几乎一半的采访在台湾和中国大陆进行。大多数接受采访的企业集中在四个行业：电子、软件、汽车及汽车零部件、纺织服装。全球台湾是这项研究的第一份报告。台湾在过去五年中以其非凡的经济发展而闻名，从 20 世纪 50 年代的贫困农业经济开始，如今已成为许多行业的有影响力的参与者，尤其是信息技术 (IT)。 《环球台湾》的编辑伯杰和莱斯特在第一章中明确表示，该书并不试图加入有关台湾经济超常发展背后力量的争论。相反，本书重点关注台湾企业如何应对全球化带来的机遇和威胁，以及台湾是否（以及在什么条件下）能够在新的全球经济中保持成功。书中特别收录了IT及汽车产业各细分领域的成功与失败案例，分析其成功与失败背后的原因，探讨这些领域在全球新经济下的前景，并为台湾的政策制定者提供建议。在第一章中，伯杰和莱斯特对台湾的经济发展进行了有益的概述，并对本书的主要发现进行了精彩的总结。伯杰和莱斯特认为，台湾企业规模太小，无法支持价值链中的一整套活动。此外，台湾的国内市场过于有限，无法让企业实现规模经济。全球化给台湾企业提供了提升能力的机会，因为全球经济中生产的模块化使台湾企业能够进入更大的市场，并允许他们专注于生产链的单一部分，例如制造。虽然台湾原始设备制造 (OEM) 公司的制造能力在某些行业（例如 IT 硬件）令人印象深刻，但这些公司开始发现自己正在与大型西方电子制造服务 (EMS) 公司以及崛起的中国制造商竞争，并且利润微薄。伯杰和莱斯特探讨了台湾企业的战略选择，以进入生产链中能够产生更高利润且不易受到竞争影响的部分。鉴于 OEM 公司在台湾经济格局中发挥着主导作用，在第二章中，Sturgeon 和 Lee 对台湾和北美的电子合同制造商进行了比较。虽然两位作者用了相当多的篇幅来解释“产业共同进化”的概念，并说明电子行业竞争对手之间共享供应网络的出现，但这一章最终还是通过讨论台湾的 ODM 公司和美国的 EMS 公司未来更有可能进行直接竞争来联系到本书的重点。 Sturgeon 和 Lee 预测，客户对设计服务的需求不断增长，可能至少会在短期内为 ODM 公司带来相对 EMS 公司的优势，因为产品多样化且地理位置分散的 EMS 公司很难在任何单一产品领域发展设计专业知识。
Globalization has been creating unprecedented opportunities and challenges for firms. To explore how companies are responding to globalization, a team of researchers from the social science, engineering, and management departments at MIT worked together on a four-year study at the MIT Industrial Performance Center. Over the 1999 – 2003 period, the research team carried out 629 interviews with managers in firms as well as people from government and academia. The interviews took place in East Asia, the United States, and Europe, with almost half of the interviews in Taiwan and China. Most of the firms selected for interview were concentrated in four industries: electronics, software, automobiles and auto parts, and textiles and apparel. Global Taiwan is the first report from this study. Taiwan has been known for its extraordinary economic development over the past five decades, beginning as a poor agricultural economy in the 1950s and now emerged as an influential player in a number of industries, notably information technology (IT). Berger and Lester, the editors of Global Taiwan , make it clear in the first chapter that the book does not attempt to join the debate over the forces behind Taiwan’s extraordinary economic development. Instead the book focuses on how Taiwanese firms have been responding to the opportunities and threats that brought about by globalization and whether (and under what conditions) Taiwan can sustain its success in the new global economy. In particular, the book features several cases studies of successes and failures of various segments in the IT and automotive industries, provides analyses for the reasons behind the successes and failures, discusses the prospect of these segments under the new global economy, and provides suggestions for policy makers in Taiwan. In the first chapter, Berger and Lester present a helpful overview of Taiwan’s economic development and an excellent summary of the key findings of the book. According to Berger and Lester, Taiwanese firms are too small to support a complete set of activities in the value chain. Furthermore, the domestic market in Taiwan is too limited to allow firms to reach scale economies. Globalization has given Taiwanese firms the opportunity to upgrade their capabilities because the modularization of production in the global economy allows Taiwanese firms to gain access to a larger market and allow them to focus on a single part of the production chain, such as manufacturing. While the manufacturing capabilities of Taiwanese original equipment manufacturing (OEM) companies have been impressive in some industries, such as IT hardware, these firms are beginning to find themselves competing with large Western electronic manufacturing services (EMS) firms and with the rising Chinese manufacturers, and are making thin margins. Berger and Lester explore Taiwanese firms’ strategic options for reaching the parts of the production chain that can yield higher margins and that are less vulnerable to competition. Given that OEM companies play a predominant role in the economic landscape of Taiwan, in Chapter 2, Sturgeon and Lee compare electronic contract manufacturers in Taiwan and North America. While the two authors devote a considerable number of pages to explaining the concept of “industry co-evolution” and illustrating the emergence of shared supply networks among competitors in electronics industries, the chapter is eventually connected to the focus of the book by discussing how Taiwanbased ODM firms and US-based EMS firms are more likely to be in direct competition in the future. Sturgeon and Lee predict that rising customer demand for design services is likely to give ODM firms at least short-term advantages over EMS firms because it is difficult for the product-diversified and geographically dispersed EMS firms to develop design expertise in any single product area.