Comment on: From learning knowledge outside to creating knowledge within: Korean mobile phone industry compared with those of Japan, Taiwan and China, by Lee and Jin

Abstract

How were firms from East Asian countries able to become technology leaders in a number of important fields? What sources of knowledge did they utilize in the early phases of their expansion? Many readers would assume that these firms learned from the industry leaders at the time, in particular from the US and European firms. However, Lee Keun and Jin Jia come to a different, somewhat surprising answer. They use patent portfolios to demonstrate that in the mobile phone industry, latecomer firms have a tendency to draw on knowledge not from the industry leaders but from their immediate predecessors.