On Linsu Kim’s Imitation to Innovation: The Dynamics of Korea’s Technological Learning

How does a nation transform itself from an imitative one to an innovative one? This is a challenge that most catching-up countries face as they make their way up the ladder in the world economy. In the twentieth century, however, examples of countries that successfully made the transition are rare, South Korea being one of the very few. In this book, the late Linsu Kim analyzes Korea’s experience of rapid industrialization (1960-1995) and identifies the late 1970s and early 1980s as the critical turning point at which the Korean nation made the transition from “imitation to innovation.” If you are in search of a clear-cut answer as to how the Koreans managed to make that transition, this is not the book for you. Kim enumerates a long list of “factors”— “government, chaebols, education, export policy, technology transfer strategy, research, development policy, sociocultural systems, and private-sector strategy” ( p. 194)—that interact with one another to create a complex dynamics of change. The author’s intention is to provide a comprehensive overview of how this dynamics of change played out in three key industries (automobiles, consumer electronics, and semiconductors), with an additional chapter on small and medium-sized enterprises. Korea’s technological trajectory, as Kim observes, has been in the reverse direction compared to that of advanced countries. Scholars in technology studies have long debated whether technology determines human action. If the tenet of technological determinism holds anywhere, it is at the catching-up countries constrained by the technological trajectories set by advanced nations. As particular technologies go through stages of development in advanced countries—emergence, consolidation, and maturity—developing nations typically take the opposite route, beginning with mature technologies and gradually moving onto emerging ones. (Figure 4-2, p. 89). If this strategy is successful, the catching-up country acquires the capability to conduct indigenous development and research activities. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal (2007) 1:259–261 DOI 10.1007/s12280-007-9017-2