【Topic】Growing entrepreneurial firms in developing countries: the interplay of the state, the market and social sector

【Speaker】Cheng-Hua Tzeng PH.D.

【Time】2007-4-6 13:30-15:30

【Venue】Weilun Building, North 401

【Language】Chinese/English

【Organizer】Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Department of Business Strategy and Policy

【Target Audience】Faculty and Doctoral Candidates

【Background Information】

Dr.Cheng-Hua Tzeng graduated fromMcGillUniversityin 2006 and now works at Samsung Economic Research Institute as a senior researcher and leader of strategy team. His research interest is economic development, entrepreneurship, international management and strategy.

This study builds an integrative framework to delineate the process of growing entrepreneurial firms in developing countries. Deriving from the existing entrepreneurship literature, this thesis uses two notions to delineate the process of growth of indigenous firms: entrepreneurial intent and entrepreneurial capability. Then, drawing on the literature of economic development, it identifies three key sectors, the state, the market and the social sector, that foster entrepreneurial intent andcultivate entrepreneurial capability.

The research setting is the information technology (IT) industries inChinaandTaiwan, each of which has had impressive performance when compared with their counterparts in other developing countries. This study differentiates the growth of entrepreneurial firms into three stages, getting started, getting there, and staying there, and proceeds to analyze the comparative-historical experiences of six IT firms, three inChinaand three inTaiwan. The firms inChinaare the Advanced Technology Service Division (ATSD), Lenovo Computer, and Great WallComputer. The firms inTaiwanare United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), Acer, and Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS).

It is found that at the stage of getting started, the government tendsto be key among the three sectors, and can broadly influence the firms’ entrepreneurial intent by building the national institution context, and more specifically through industrial policies. At the stage of gettingthere, the domestic social sector becomes more salient, and can transfer technology to entrepreneurial firms either from abroad or from their own research; they can also help defend entrepreneurial firms in intellectual property disputes with multinational firms. At the stage ofstaying there, due to their advanced technology, multinationals as forces in the market become more prevalent, and can enhance or destroy the capability of entrepreneurial firms. Overall, the state can act as context builder, champion and confronter; the social sector can play the roles of capability builder and capability defender, while the market, via multinational firms, can play the roles of capability destroyer and capability enhancer.