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ABSTRACT
The paper deals with issues concerning latecomers’ industrial catch-up. Using the recent development of hackathons as an example, this study explores how actors in an emerging economy manage to enhance innovation capability through certain events. Based on qualitative studies on the innovation activities and outcomes within major hackathons in Taiwan, this paper argues that, thanks to the unique environment and settings of hackathons, industrial actors in Taiwan are able to not only obtain resources and stimulus to facilitate their production of and investments in innovation, but also to improve local institutions for innovation. In addition to demonstrating the nature of these latecomers’ enhanced innovation capability, we also explain key mechanisms contributing to hackathons’ specific innovation dynamisms.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Existing studies have shown that firms in some well-established latecomer industrial clusters have suffered from over-embeddedness and path-dependency (Martin & Sunley, Citation2006), resulting in their reluctance to venture into advanced technological activities (Chen & Lin, Citation2014; Cho & Hassink, Citation2009).
2. The participants were selected through a mixed random- and purposive-sampling procedure. We categorized the participants according to their team performance (i.e., whether the team won event awards or not), skill background (i.e., technicians and non-technicians) and professional status (i.e., industry professional or student). Within these three categories, we approached potential interviewees randomly.
3. For example, Facebook’s Like button was conceived as part of a hackathon.
4. Based on author’s calculations.
5. Based on author’s calculations.
6. For instance, HackNTU attracted about 500 to 1000 participants in each of its events in 2015, 2016 and 2017. And the foreign participants are recorded from countries like Canada, China, Malaysia, India, USA, etc.
7. Many hackathon participants find partners and build their teams with the assistance of event organizers in the beginning of hackathons. These teams are ad-hoc in the sense that they are formed only for the sake of participating the hackathons, and often are disbanded after the events.
8. One respondent who used to be the director of a programming department in a leading global firm in the US provided explanations regarding the rationale behind firms’ increasing use of hackathons to rapidly screen applicable and marketable products, as he said in the interview, “in a hackathon, you have three days to come up with prototypes or applications of your idea. If you cannot make it, you should drop that idea. It is quite possible that the working prototypes and applications will still not be found in three months. If it takes that long to prototype, the idea probably has little application value. (Interview, April 22, 2017).
9. In the instance of a Taiwanese startup promoting local development of IOT (internet of things) technology, its general manager expressed that, through the hackathon, i.e. #UnaHack1, this firm organized, he was allowed to introduce his technology assets to local technology communities. And thanks to the ideas and feedback sourced from event participants, his firm managed to identify a range of possible applications for the technology in Taiwan, and revise its business strategy accordingly (Tsai, Citation2017).
10. For instance, the manager of a local bank noted that, through a series of hackathon events, his bank derived some ideas which had been applied to its products and services, including the bank’s foreign currency exchange platform (Yuan, Citation2016).