ABSTRACT
Over the past forty years, Taiwan has developed and prospered in tandem with the restructuring of the global economy. The remarkable ascent of Taiwan that has transformed it from a poor, agriculture-based economy into a knowledge-based economy has been part of a broad set of changes often labeled as “globalization.” Taiwan entrepreneurs and scientists have been important drivers of the process of globalization, and the Taiwan economy has naturally been one of its largest beneficiaries. Two major interpretive frameworks have been developed to understand the coevolution of Taiwan firms and the global economy. Both of these interpretive frameworks command significant respect today and consciously or unconsciously structure most discussions of firm strategy and economic development in East Asia. In this chapter I argue, however, that both of these frameworks are obsolete and provide little guidance for policy and little insight into future developments. Instead, deeper restructuring of global networks of production, trade, and especially innovation require an even greater degree of flexibility and adaptability than in the past. This is particularly true given that the next stage of Taiwan's prosperity must involve the launch of an even more creative knowledge-intensive economy that stays a step ahead of the emerging giants of China and India.
