Review of Korean Imitation and Innovation in the Last 60 Years

Abstract

This review is dedicated to analyzing South Korean technological progress, which has shown impressive economic performance, which has earned South Korea a well-deserved place among industrialized countries. Korea’s advances in the electronics, semiconductors, automotive, and shipbuilding industries have demonstrated industrial maturity and high innovative ability. To understand how they reached their position today, we have to understand to the core of the process by researching the roots of these innovations over the past 60 years, identifying specific innovations and tracing their transmission throughout South Korea. The technology transfer and development model of South Korea is unique. After other countries refused to license and transfer modern technologies to this country, Korea resorted to its national research system to add innovative content to its imitative products. This review article summarizes the experience of Korea, from not having access to technology to innovation and economic progress, which led to increases in per capita income, the prosperity of urbanization, and the recovery of markets. The model of technology transfer in Korea is valuable, especially for today’s developing countries. What it offers is not pure theory, but rather a successive series of procedures undertaken by the government of Korea. It has not been a matter of chance, and their economic prosperity was not due to the sudden discovery of natural resources.