After the crisis：The Study of Regional Economic Resilience in Taiwan’s Machine Tool Industry
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Tien, Meng-Ling
Abstract
Researches in regional economies have been mostly focused on how industries can grow and develop. However, globalization has bound world economies together as never seen before and, as a result, economic shocks brought about by external factors has become ever more frequent and unpredictable. Therefore, this research is aimed to take a different perspective by using the concept of Resilience to get down to the discussion of tenacity of regional economies in the face of such interconnected shocks. In the case studies of Taiwan''s machine tool cluster, this research discusses the variation of regional economies'' resilience and how different agents in the cluster cope with external shocks. In an induction of the grow rates of the machine tool industrial output value, it is found that since 1980s, Taiwan''s machine tool industrial cluster has encountered five negative growths due to external shocks, which are respectively related to the 1987-1993 Voluntary Restraint Agreement (VRA), 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, 1999 Taiwan''s 921 Earthquake, 2000 Internet Bubble and American 911 Terrorist Attack, and 2008 Global Financial Tsunami. During the shocks, the entrepreneurship, industrial structure, public sectors'' assistance, and social capital interacted with one another in adaptation to various external shocks and successfully produced resilience to the regional economy. The research has also found that in coping with different characteristics of external shocks, different agents within the machine tool cluster react accordingly. When facing the setbacks of major markets due to events such as the VRA, Internet Bubble, and 911 Terrorist Attack, the industrial cluster was under the leadership of entrepreneurs to switch its agents for appropriate assistance based on the changing situation, and successfully developed new businesses to diversify and transfer from the original markets. When facing global financial crises (e.g. the Asian Financial Crisis and Global Financial Tsunami), the agents in the cluster went through learning of coping with new situations and adaptation by business alliance to restructure their industrial framework and uplift their overall industrial competitiveness. When facing unpredictable natural disasters (e.g. Taiwan 921 Earthquake), the agents went through joint action and highly flexible production to make up part of the losses incurred to their fellow agents.
Subjects
Resilience
Regional economies
Taiwan’s machine tool industry
Industrial clusters
External shocks
Type
thesis
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