Global Taiwan examines the impact of globalization on the industry and economy of Taiwan since the spectacular growth of the 1990s. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with firms in Taiwan, China, the United States, Japan, Europe, and other areas, the book analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of Taiwanese firms at a time when they face new competition from powerful global leaders and new producers in China. The contributors cover topics of enormous importance for Taiwan as well as the rest of the world, including transformations in the international economy, technological advances that enabled modularization and fragmentation of the production system, contract manufacturers, regionalization, and links with Chinese industry. The book addresses such questions as: Can Taiwanese companies be maintained and expanded with the same corporate strategies and public policies as in the past? Can these strategies still work for other countries? If changes are required, what resources can be mobilized in the public and private sectors? As massive relocation of manufacturing and services moves plants and jobs to low-wage countries like China and India, what will remain at home in societies like Taiwan?

Global Taiwan examines the impact of globalization on the industry and economy of Taiwan since the spectacular growth of the 1990s. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with firms in Taiwan, China, the United States, Japan, Europe, and other areas, the book analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of Taiwanese firms at a time when they face new competition from powerful global leaders and new producers in China. The contributors cover topics of enormous importance for Taiwan as well as the rest of the world, including transformations in the international economy, technological advances that enabled modularization and fragmentation of the production system, contract manufacturers, regionalization, and links with Chinese industry. The book addresses such questions as: Can Taiwanese companies be maintained and expanded with the same corporate strategies and public policies as in the past? Can these strategies still work for other countries? If changes are required, what resources can be mobilized in the public and private sectors? As massive relocation of manufacturing and services moves plants and jobs to low-wage countries like China and India, what will remain at home in societies like Taiwan?

Amid mounting concern over the loss of jobs to low-wage economies, one fact is clear: America's prosperity hinges on the ability of its businesses to continually introduce new products and services. But what makes for a creative economy? How can the remarkable surge of innovation that fueled the boom of the 1990s be sustained?

For an answer, Richard K. Lester and Michael J. Piore examine innovation strategies in some of the economy's most dynamic sectors. Through eye-opening case studies of new product development in fields such as cell phones, medical devices, and blue jeans, two fundamental processes emerge.

One of these processes, analysis--rational problem solving--dominates management and engineering practice. The other, interpretation, is not widely understood, or even recognized--although, as the authors make clear, it is absolutely crucial to innovation. Unlike problem solving, interpretation embraces and exploits ambiguity, the wellspring of creativity in the economy. By emphasizing interpretation, and showing how these two radically different processes can be combined, Lester and Piore's book gives managers and designers the concepts and tools to keep new products flowing.

But the authors also offer an unsettling critique of national policy. By ignoring the role of interpretation, economic policymakers are drawing the wrong lessons from the 1990s boom. The current emphasis on expanding the reach of market competition will help the analytical processes needed to implement innovation. But if unchecked it risks choking off the economy's vital interpretive spaces. Unless a more balanced policy approach is adopted, warn Lester and Piore, America's capacity toinnovate--its greatest economic asset--will erode.

The biggest-selling book in MIT history, Made in America is the definitive account of how America works. Based on interviews with hundreds of workers, this vivid portrait noly only identifies weaknesses and problems in management and productivity, but offers workable solutions for making American business work well again.

Recently, significant new productivity gains have been reported in important industries, both old and new. What is it about such industries, and individual firms in those industries, that has enabled them to regain their productive edge? In this book, a leading authority on this crucial issue searches five recent success stories--in automobiles, steel, semiconductors, electric power generation, and cellular communication--for clues to shape a new national strategy for economic growth. Taken together, these reports from the front lines of American industry point to a new agenda for growth, tailored to the volatile, unpredictable conditions that will persist in the economy for the foreseeable future. At the heart of the agenda is a proposal for a "new economic citizenship"--a new view of the rights, responsibilities, and resources that should be accorded to those who will contribute their ideas and labor to the new century.

Fifteen interdisciplinary case studies on the application of technology in the energy and environment sectors include applications of solar, wind, fuel cell, nuclear, and other coal combustion and emission control technologies. The case studies reveal the interrelationships among technical and non-technical factors, and demonstrate that the successful application of new technologies requires the synthesis of technical, economic, political, environmental, and social aspects.