Doctoral Dissertation Research: Collaboration on Thin Ground: Contract Production Arrangements Between Taiwanese Firms and their American MNC Customers in the PC Industry

本论文旨在探讨个人电脑产业中台湾厂商与美国跨国公司客户间的原始设备制造/原始设计制造安排。 本报告重点讨论了它们作为合同生产伙伴之间的合作问题，并探讨了它们如何设法在一个由于文化差异和全球经济管制薄弱而被普遍认为是知识密集型产业中发起、维持和深化合作的问题。 它的第二项任务是确定这些公司之间合作的质量，方法是将这种合作与那些具有浓厚文化和制度的经济体中的客户-供应商合作进行比较。 该项目采用了多个比较案例研究的方法。 数据是通过档案研究以及与台湾相关公司及其美国客户的结构化访谈收集的，必要时，还将与台湾政府官员进行深入访谈。 通过研究公司间跨国界合作的现象，该项目可望阐明社会科学中的更一般性问题，即在薄弱的文化和体制环境中如何进行合作以及进行何种合作是可能的。 由于在世界上那些没有丰富的社会体制基础设施的地区以及在急于利用跨国公司主导的国际生产网络在高技术部门的扩展进行产业升级的发展中国家，人们日益认识到公司间合作的重要性，预计这一研究也将具有广泛的经验意义。

This dissertation project examines the Original Equipment Manufacturing/Original Design Manufacturing arrangements between Taiwanese firms and their American MNC customers in the personal computer (PC) industry. It focuses on the issue of cooperation between them as contract production partners and addresses the question of how they have managed to initiate, sustain and deepen their cooperation in an industry generally considered to be relatively knowledge intensive given their cultural differences and the weakly regulated global economy. Its secondary task is to determine the quality of cooperation found between these firms by contrasting it with instances of customer-supplier cooperation found in economies that are known to be endowed with thick culture and institutions. The project employs the approach of multiple comparative case studies. Data is collected through archival research as well as structured interviews with relevant firms in Taiwan and their American customers and, if necessary, in-depth interviews with Taiwanese government officials. Through examining the phenomenon of inter-firm cooperation across national borders, the project is expected to shed light on the more general problems in social sciences of how and what kinds of cooperation are possible in a thin cultural and institutional environment. It is also expected to have broad empirical significance given the growing recognition of the importance of inter-firm cooperation in those parts of the world not blessed with a rich socio-institutional infrastructure and in developing countries eager to engage in industrial upgrading by taking advantage of the spread of MNCs-led international production networks in the high-tech sectors.