Wei Xie, Steven White
This paper examines the linkage among the industry and policy environment, firm-level resources and capabilities, and the success of learning strategies in China's handset makers. Within a particular context - characterised by a large domestic market, disintegrated technological regime, established foreign firms and supportive government policies - these firms were able to exploit their own specific advantages and were also able to acquire new resources and capabilities, quite rapidly emerging as serious competitors in the domestic market vis-à-vis global incumbents. These latecomers have tightly linked their product innovation efforts to the local market characteristics and have created competitive advantages through their distribution channels. Our findings have strategic implications for new entrants in other industry and national contexts, and also for research on the critical conditions and processes supporting successful technological learning. Copyright © 2006 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100008, China; INSEAD, Singapore 138676, 1 Ayer Raja Avenue, Singapore; Department of Economics and Management of Technology, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; Asian Business and Comparative Management, INSEAD
