Building collaboration networks for 3G system development, attempts from China

This paper tries to gain a better understanding of the developing process of new generation telecommunication systems in the big developing countries and to find key dynamics that influence such a process from the inter-firm network perspective. By observing the growth of collaboration networks in China's 3G mobile telecommunication industry, the desire to exchange resources, widen experience between the local and foreign manufacturers, in terms of internationalisation, are found to be important in driving the inter-firm network for the dominant design. The effective shaping and coordinating of the network settings become critical for the latecomer players to survive the global standard war. Therefore, exploring the external resource and occupying the central positions in the network are more likely to lead the local firms to transform to innovations in developing a complex information system.