Process architecture impact: a comparative study of two glass industries

Although Japan first developed and commercialised the LCD panel in the early 1990s, Korea and Taiwan have rapidly caught up and even surpassed Japan in the management of LCD panel supply chain by the early 2000s. In this paper, we compare the construction flat‐glass and the LCD flat‐glass in terms of competitive advantages. We examine to what extent the adoption of process architecture impacts the extent of sustainable global competitive advantage even in the same industry. A product with integral process architecture tends to be more difficult to imitate. And organisational capabilities that utilise a right kind of process architecture may secure the source of sustainable competitive advantages. The findings of this study suggest how critical it is to develop and manage process technologies from an architectural perspective in different product areas including semiconductor and solar energy.