| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國際企業學研究所 === 94 === The printed circuit board (PCB) industry has long been a knowledge-oriented industry. Profitability is mainly dependent on management skills. In addition to price, time and flexibility are crucial competitive elements. Competitiveness within the industry is mainly determined by the ‘productivity’ of a player’s value chain activities. Moreover, ‘productivity’ is established not simply on the basis of an enterprise’s scale, or the competitive sphere in which it finds itself, but also on its mode of competition. If a company wants to bring its competitive force into play, in addition to its internal core competence in management ability, the degree to which the external environment supports its total value chain activities is also of great importance.
The economic mode practiced in the Southern and Eastern parts of Mainland China, of integrating a planned economy with the natural drive of the non-government sector, has taken full advantage of the great opportunity presented by the current trend of entrepreneurs to move their production bases overseas, and has attracted numerous entrepreneurs to invest and open factories.
Scientific and technical evolution has enabled entrepreneurs to even more effectively reproduce the advantages enjoyed in their home countries, and over ten short years, a complete PCB industry and cluster has developed and conglomerated in this region, which has also become the main global production base for PCB.
This cluster environment, because of the geographic convenience, enables close mutual interchange. This has led players within the industry to establish mutual understandings and trustful relationships, reducing transaction costs and investment risk. For sub-contracting factories, this ‘cluster effect’ assists them in developing one sole production process, or to specialize and achieve economies of scale within value chain activities. For those PCB producers who need to contract out some processing, the cluster effect provides a variety of sub-contractors to choose from. At the same time, transaction costs may be reduced, which creates a win-win situation providing an incentive for co-operation.
The present research, starts by analyzing the structural characteristics of the PCB industry from the angle of global competition, including analyzing the origins of value activities outsourcing and competitive advantages, under this ‘cluster effect’. The research aims to probe into feasible cooperative modes for the PCB industry within the emerging Asian market, as well as into how to make a good use of the cluster effect to change competitive relationships and to establish mutually beneficial cooperative mechanisms.
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