Making a Technological Catch-up: Barriers and Opportunities

Summary: This paper has discussed several issues regarding the barriers and opportunities for technological catch-up by the late-comer countries and firms. As one of the barriers to technological catch-up, the paper emphasizes the uncertainty involved with the third stage of learning how to design. The barriers arise because as the forerunner firms refuse to sell or give license to successful catching-up firms who thus have to design the product by themselves. The paper discusses how to overcome this barrier. It also notes that if the crisis of design technology is a push factor for leapfrogging, arrival of new techno-economic paradigm can serve as a pull factor for leapfrogging, serving as a winder of opportunity. The, it emphasized the two risks with leapfrogging, namely the risk of choosing right technology or standards and the risk of creating initial markets, and how to overcome these risks. It discusses how to overcome these risks in leapfrogging, and differentiates diverse forms of knowledge accesses. Then, the paper takes up the issue of whether there can be a single common or several models for catch-up. A common element of catching-up is to enter new markets segments quickly, to manufacture with high levels of engineering excellence