Does a first mover intrinsically surpass a late mover Is a late mover able to catch up with a first mover because of an environmental factor Or is it because of an internal factor (Abell, 1978; Lieberman & Montgomery, 1988; Robinson, Fornell & Su ...
Does a first mover intrinsically surpass a late mover Is a late mover able to catch up with a first mover because of an environmental factor Or is it because of an internal factor (Abell, 1978; Lieberman & Montgomery, 1988; Robinson, Fornell & Sullavon, 1992) If it is the internal factor, then, how can a late mover catch up with a first mover
Recently, with the increasing interest in late-mover strategy, the questions mentioned above have evolved as important research subjects (Schnaars, 1994; Kim, 1997a, 1997b; Choi, Cho and Moon, 1997). Especially as Japanese and Korean firms have been leading the world market in the hi-tech industry with the semi-conductor industry such as memories or Flat Panel Display as the center, debate on late-mover strategy seems to have begun in earnest (Mathews & Cho, 1997). From a theoretical perspective, since most existing strategy studies have been on first entrants such as American and European, research on late-mover strategy will contribute to supplementing such a one-sided viewpoint (Cho, Kim & Rhee, 1997).
However, as Schnaars (1994) has mentioned, not only are studies on late-mover strategy insufficient but there also is no qualitatively systemized theory. Most of the studies end at citing and explaining the advantages or disadvantages of first entrants or late entrants. With such problems in mind, this research will investigate existing researches on first movers and late movers, and through case studies on Japanese and Korean firms in semi-conductor memory fields and FPD fields, will explain a late mover's catch-up process.
Therefore, we would like to clarify that this paper is an exploratory study to arrive at models or propositions through case analysis rather than a study to prove the hypothesis established in the existing studies.