RESEARCHERS: Kenneth L. Kraemer, Jason Dedrick, Vijay Gurbaxani, John King


This research examined the national IT policies of various countries and their relative influence in helping or hindering the development of local IT industry and the IT industry globally. It was conducted mainly in the 1990s, but continues in a few countries such as Taiwan and China. The research involved field interviews with government officials, hardware and software companies, industry associations and country experts (academics, former industry or government officials) in each country as well as intensive study of documents and statistics about the industry. Case studies of the hardware industry were prepared for Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan and published in scholarly journals, including IEEE Computer, The Information Society, Asian Survey, and World Development.

This research led to a major book, Asia's Computer Challenge, which examined the claim that Asian companies and countries would run away with the computer industry as they had with the consumer electronics industry. The book showed that although some Asian companies were direct competitors to U.S. firms, for the most part the Asian companies were partners with U.S. multinational computer firms in the global supply chains that have come to characterize the industry. Moreover, this partnership allowed U.S. firms to continually lower the average selling price of computers, directly benefiting consumers and companies.