摘要:本研究將處理在全球化跨界生產的網絡經濟體系中,不同的節點之間的連結,以及在這連結中扮演中間接軌介面的區域角色的經濟地理意義。跨界生產被理解為不同社會經濟空間接合所產生的張力與調節過程,因此產生了不同型態的經濟組織型態與衍生的社會行為。特別是對於高科技跨界投資而言,有關技術擴散、生產體系的統理、不同社會文化下市場的佔有、以及高科技勞動力市場的建構,都將是在這接軌過程中,所產生必須解決克服的張力議題。面對這些統理機制的議題,廠商一方面可以利用所有權優勢加以克服,另一方面則是嘗試策略性的在地化,藉以消弭不同社會經濟空間接軌的緊張關係。其中,在跨界投資的過程中,扮演介面角色位置,也就是兼具資本或技術輸出地與接收地兩者的社會經濟空間特性的第三空間。
本研究將探討台灣新竹的高科技廠商,一方面累積著過去二十年來與全球技術核心的矽谷緊密連結的產業經驗,另一方面,又可以利用與中國大陸在文化上的鄰近性降低跨界生產的交易成本與進入障礙,因此,可以巧妙扮演中介的角色。我們將從這一分析角度切入,初探台灣從1990年代後期開始,高科技廠商逐步進入大陸地區投資,特別以半導體與筆記型電腦廠商赴蘇滬的投資為例,就台灣
Abstract: This research aims to explore the possibilities and limitations of the role played by the interface region in the cross-border economic activities. In the globalizing economy, cross-border business networks prevails and constitutes the channels to engender coupling/decoupling effect for each connecting regions. Interface is defined here as a hybrid space where two divergent social and geographical organizations collide and articulate to create the tensions and opportunities in the interconnected economic system. In other words, it is an organizational field that engages the contrasting but overlapping socio-economic spaces. As Taiwan’s high technology industries grew by benefiting from the connection with the technology hub, Silicon Valley, it has extended the production networks to China, particularly Shanghai City and the neighboring regions, since late 1990s. In the cross-border networks, Taiwan’s high-tech firms take advantage of huge stock of business experiences, which was accumulated in the dense connection with Silicon Valley in more than two decades. At the same time, Hsinchu firms make the most of the cultural and language affinity to reduce transaction costs and entry barriers of doing business in China. In the sense, it will play well as the middleman in the triangle connection.
A number of challenges arose in the cross-border investments: technology diffusion management, subcontracting system constructing, labor regime regulation, and market channel expansion in the contrastingly institutionalized socio-economic space. At the same time, the cross-border business networks meant knife-edge effect for the headquartering regions: it both created partners to cooperate and fostered rivalries to compete. The activities of cross-border investment constitute the channel of profit leverage, and paradoxically of know-how leakage. Trans-border firms have to mobilize resources to enhance production improvement in host regions, and at the same time, enforce control mechanism to prevent competition from local spin-offs. By elaborating on ANT (Actor-Network Theory) framework, the research will attack these issues and explore the hybridization effects in the governing of the high technology cross-border networks connecting Hsinchu and Shanghai regions.
Finally, guanxi, or inter-personal relationship, is argued to be a key governance mediator within the worldwide Chinese capitalist system, and will constitute the arbitrage effect for the ethnical Chinese firms. In broad sense, it represents the culture turn in current urban and regional studies. However, the research cast concerns on such over-socialization arguments, and will explore the possibilities and limits of the ethnic ties in transnational Chinese business networks. The connection among Silicon Valley, Hsinchu and Shanghai will be the perfect case to examine the argument on Chinese guanxi capitalism.