Abstract
Since the late 1990s, the development of the information and telecommunication (IT) Korean industry has been often cited as a case showing the Korean economy’s adaptive capacity under the rapidly shifting domestic and international environments. In particular, the autonomous development of the Time Division Exchange (TDX) and the commercialization of the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) are touted as an example of the successful execution of Korea’s catch-up strategy in the IT industry. The IT industry also became a locomotive reviving the Korean economy in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 1997. In 1996, the industrial output of the IT industry was 5729 billion won, accounting for 11.9% of the Korean GDP. Within the entire IT industry, the ICT equipment production was dominant with a total output of 3.68 trillion won, while other telecommunication service, broadcasting service, and software took 1.17 trillion won, 299 billion won, and 259 billion won, respectively.
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Notes
- 1.
Arguing that LG’s takeover of DACOM was a compensatory reward in return for LG’s disposal of the semiconductor division, the Solidarity for Economic Reform heavily criticized the Korean government that the government implicitly connived chaebol expansion (Solidarity for Economic Reform May 13, 1999).
- 2.
The MIC, a principal ministry responsible for IT policy planning and implementation, was abolished in February 2008. The Lee Myung-bak government broke up the MIC’s jurisdictional tasks to other ministries and commissions such as the Ministry of Administration and Safety, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, and the Korea Communications Commission.
- 3.
In this regard, Ó’Riain (2007) argues that ‘over-embeddedness’ was a primary challenge the Korean government had to deal with.
- 4.
Walter (2008) argues that although the Korean government made a number of changes in returning for the IMF bailout, these changes were essentially ‘mock compliance’ without producing fundamental reformulation of the Korean model of development.
- 5.
The MCI was renamed the MOCIE.
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Lee, S., Rhyu, Sy. (2019). The Dual Dynamics of the IT Industry Transformation. In: The Political Economy of Change and Continuity in Korea. The Political Economy of the Asia Pacific. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71453-0_5
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