How Industry’s Characteristics Affect the Technological Catch-up by a Latecomer Firm? Case Study of an Iranian Automobile Firm

Despite existing studies mostly analyzing successful cases of catching-up, this paper examines a fairly unsuccessful case of catching-up by a latecomer automobile firm. To this end, using the strategy of case study and thematic analysis, themes and concepts related to the conceptual framework are elicited and categorized as well. The results of this study are operationalized conceptual framework, as the key contribution of the paper, introduces new elements attributed to the regimes of technology and market of automobile industry. The elements include technology transfer, diversity of technological areas, tacit knowledge, backward linkages, economy of scale, local supply chain, capital-goods attitude towards a consumer goods, oligopolistic market, and homogeneous market. In addition, this paper adds two new factors (i.e. industrial strategy and structural issues) to the existing catch-up models. And finally, adopting coherent policies aligned with industry’s regimes and industrial strategy could provide appropriate environment for indigenous firms to catch-up with forerunners.