Industry clusters and business ecosystems — The smart mobile industry in Taiwan

Cluster has been used by the government and multiple industries to facilitate business growth for decades, but information telecommunication technology and global integration of the supply chain have challenged competition. The business ecosystem links the stakeholders and their subsidiaries around the world beyond geographic location of industrial clusters. The best practice of smart phone companies establishes business ecosystem growth with its supply chain members. However, a number of studies have been conducted using the major platform leaders as subjects. We argue the phenomena of followers´ and the supply chains´ roles in the business system. This paper uses case study to analyze Apple, Samsung, and HTC with their Taiwanese supply chain companies based on 90 supply companies and 285 factories. Research suggests that smart phone companies intend to link global resources to replace regional clusters, heterogeneous integration to replace technology related companies, and cooperation-competition to replace traditional growth strategies. The research findings reflect that globalization and technology are challenging the industry cluster, which is based on geographic proximity. This may also change the regional sectoral agglomeration policy.