26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

This paper explores technology resilience of high-tech industry by examining the process from technology decline to resilience. There are three research questions raised and answered by this paper: 1) Why some high-tech industries enter technological crises while others are less vulnerable? 2) Why some high-tech industries suffer more from technological crises? 3) Why some high-tech industries recover more quickly from technological crises? The research begins by reviewing some of the challenges in defining resilience by different level of analytical units, then a parsimonious, generic technology resilience indicator framework comprising construct and variables is proposed. This paper shows what analytical shifts are needed to unravel the technological resilience of industries’ longer-term competitiveness. Building upon an understanding of technological resilience in large-scale industries, this paper stresses the need to focus on systems of knowledge convergence and cross-border collaboration, rather than just knowledge production and accumulation. The process for using the framework in the analysis of global semiconductor, pharmaceutical and smartphone industry is subsequently demonstrated and compared. Finally, findings and implications obtained from the analysis of the current state of industrial initiatives are summarized. The intended contribution is conceptual as well as methodological. The conceptual framework and proposed indicators provide the context based on which the straightforward and replicable methodology is consolidated.