The ‘Triple-alliance’ perspective for new industry creation: Lessons from the flat panel industry in Taiwan

This paper describes how the development of the microelectronics industry in Taiwan has followed an evolutionary path that eventually led to the formation of the ‘Triple-alliance’. The ‘Triple-alliance’ model postulates that a nation's industrialization is fundamentally underpinned by the arrangement of three distinct institutions: state bureaucracy, domestic business groups and multinational corporations. The paper delineates the role of each participating institution in the context of Taiwan's microelectronics industry, and discusses the interaction between domestic and foreign institutions to demonstrate how the alliance facilitates the transfer and absorption of technology. Using the creation of the flat panel display industry in Taiwan as an example, the paper shows that understanding the interactions among these three institutions is essential for uncovering how technology-intensive industries are created in late-industrializing countries. The paper adopts an evolutionary approach in tracing how the web of linkages and alliances among these three institutions has led to the successful creation of Taiwan's technology-intensive flat panel display industry.