Taiwan's foreign direct investment in the UK : the case of Taiwanese high technology enterprise

Abstract

This paper considers the migration of Taiwanese high technology industry and uses Dunn's policy problem structuring model as its research process. That model is used to ensure that this study's findings can be used as a government policy-making reference with regard to firms' investments abroad. This study begins by reviewing relevant literature and then turns to the practical background analysis. The findings in the first phase of the research process conclude with the conceptual framework of One-ball-one-box and a summary of the characteristics of foreign direct investment (FDI) related theories. The former, expressing the stability of the policy environment, conceptualizes the process of policy interaction between countries and cross-state economic organizations. It is concluded that the main characteristics of FDI theories are covered by ideas of competitive advantage, organization strategy, externality and production cost. These provide the study with a theoretical foundation involving a background analysis to structure the initial model, which contains the motive factors, the firm's internal condition and the stability of policy investment environment. The empirical methodology we suggest is the factor-Logit model which combines factor analysis and Logit econometric modeling to construct a more detailed, specific, and formal mathematical representational model in the problem specification phase of the research. The results of empirical examination suggest the elements of the initial model to be transferred to a final model and confirm that the motive factors include EU advantages in marketing, UK-based overseas marketing, research and development input, the regional investment and production environment, as well as the convergence of location and skill. The findings also confirm the importance of enterprise size, senior staff's experience, and financial capacity; this study suggests that the stability of policy investment environment is also supported by the dimensions of trade activity, industry category and market style in FDI decisions. The study finishes with a list of policy suggestions.

Date of Award	1 Jul 2004
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Northumbria University
Supervisor	Ian Stone (Supervisor) & Dilek Demirbas (Supervisor)