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ion of Ramp。 and Kim S. R. 1996). While external technology sourcing strategies ate highly sophisticated, the organization of innovation within these firms remains rather ineffectual and there is a huge potential for reorganization and productivity improvement. Organizational conservatism continues to prevail. If changes occur, they follow an outdated centralized Ramp。 Kim I. Y and Kim C. Y. 1991。 Kim S. G. 1995。D output, ., the efficiency of technology management. Patent figures indicate that Korea has a problem: while it spends more than twice the amount for Ramp。D budget, Korea’s total Ramp。D expenditures of US$ (in 1993) lag well behind those of Japan ( in 1992) and the . (US$ ) (Lall 1997, Table 8). In order to reach a ‘critical mass’ for industrial upgrading, Ramp。D spending as a ratio of total sales increased from % in 1976 to % in 1990. While this is an impressive achievement, it is still less than half of the current Ramp。D in the electronics industry, and this accounted for 32% of the researchers in the entire Korean industry. By 1990 this number had risen to 12,865 and accounted for 37% of total Ramp。D. Fourth, industrial promotion policies were biased towards quantitative goals and neglected industrial upgrading: firms received support ‘…on the basis of their export volumes… irrespective of their achievements in capital and labor productivities, valueadded, and technologies (Sun G. Kim 1995, ). In the 1980s Korea’s parative labor cost advantages eroded, product life cycles shortened and petition intensified in the electronics industry. This has forced the Korean electronics industry to develop its own Ramp。D, for the following reasons: First, rapid capacity and market share expansion was much easier, if production was based on imported machines and technology. Second, price petition depended primarily on a bination of low labor costs and selective government support and protection: peting for government resources and contracts has been the essence of petition. Third, continuously high rates of inflation and high interest rates have acted as powerful disincentives to Ramp。 gross inefficiencies of corporate technology management。 their impact however has been magnified by important domestic factors. A failure to upgrade is one important reason for Korea’s vulnerability to the current crisis in the financial and currency markets: it has reduced the capacity of Korean firms to generate a sufficiently large amount of foreign exchange that is necessary to service their huge debt. A NARROW DOMESTIC KNOWLEDGE BASE A narrow domestic knowledge base is another indicator of Korea’s truncated industrial upgrading. Catchingup required a limited set of capabilities: a capacity to absorb and upgrade imported foreign technology and to develop operational capabilities in production, investment and minor adaptations. This is no longer sufficient today. In 1995, an OECD review of Korea’s NSI concluded: ‘The country can no longer afford simply to import technology which foreigners are in fact more and more reticent to introd