A comparative study of the development of technology-intensive industries: Korean and Romanian automobile industries

The automobile industry is a technology-intensive industry that has the potential to create successes in many other related industries. This paper analyzes the approaches taken during the developmental processes of the automobile industries in Romania and Korea. This paper identifies the causes of their rapid growth and compares the experiences of the two nations particularly with respect to the approaches they took during the developmental stages of their automobile industries. Automobile industries in these two countries, Dacia and Hyundai in particular, contributed to economic growth in terms of employment, income generation and development of advanced technologies via the linkage effect. After comparing the merger and acquisition approach in Romania with the technology licensing approach in Korea in light of the government policies which pursued industrialization since the 1960s, it provides policy implications for developing countries which try to develop technology-intensive industries such as the automobile industry.