The steel industry is one of the many major world industries extensively restructured in this era of globalization. This text explains how and why the steel industry has shifted from advanced capitalist countries to late industrializing countries. Drawing upon case studies of the steel industry in the US, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and India, Anthony P. D'Costa examines the relationship between industrial change and institutional responses to technological diffusion. He reveals that governments' and firms' differing responses to innovations lead to an uneven diffusion of technology and industrial reorganization. Moreover, when it becomes clear that existing institutional arrangements no longer serve the industry well, new arrangements are created which allow for innovative behaviour. Often this has created opportunities for technological "leapfrogging" and the emergence of new technologies in unexpected places. The steel industry has consequently known a new dynamism and the open-ended nature of capitalist competition has been firmly underscored.