Abstract
Standards have become a basis of global competition among countries. Although there are many studies of standards and standardization, little is known about how international standards are set. Even less is known about how it occurs in the unprecedented case in which a developing country is actively involved in this process. In the past few years, China, leveraging the huge size of its domestic markets, has attempted to influence international technology standard setting. Standardization, especially at the international level, often revolves around building an alliance surrounding a particular technology. Actor-network theory (ANT) is a theory that helps analyze the ways in which actors form alliances and enroll other actors to strengthen such alliances surrounding a technology. Therefore, we see a fit between the study of standard setting and ANT. In this paper, we use ANT to investigate the process of mobile standard setting in an international context where firms, industry consortia, and governments collaborate and compete in complex ways. It is found that China's attempt to set WAPI as a national standard failed in enrolling other actors mainly due to the fact that WAPI was too closed a standard even for a de jure one; China did not release the WAPI security algorithm to the scrutiny of the international community.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 177-195 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Journal of Strategic Information Systems |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2006 Sep 1 |
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All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Management Information Systems
- Information Systems
- Information Systems and Management
Cite this
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A standards war waged by a developing country : Understanding international standard setting from the actor-network perspective. / Lee, Heejin; Oh, Sangjo.
In: Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 15, No. 3, 01.09.2006, p. 177-195.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - A standards war waged by a developing country
T2 - Understanding international standard setting from the actor-network perspective
AU - Lee, Heejin
AU - Oh, Sangjo
PY - 2006/9/1
Y1 - 2006/9/1
N2 - Standards have become a basis of global competition among countries. Although there are many studies of standards and standardization, little is known about how international standards are set. Even less is known about how it occurs in the unprecedented case in which a developing country is actively involved in this process. In the past few years, China, leveraging the huge size of its domestic markets, has attempted to influence international technology standard setting. Standardization, especially at the international level, often revolves around building an alliance surrounding a particular technology. Actor-network theory (ANT) is a theory that helps analyze the ways in which actors form alliances and enroll other actors to strengthen such alliances surrounding a technology. Therefore, we see a fit between the study of standard setting and ANT. In this paper, we use ANT to investigate the process of mobile standard setting in an international context where firms, industry consortia, and governments collaborate and compete in complex ways. It is found that China's attempt to set WAPI as a national standard failed in enrolling other actors mainly due to the fact that WAPI was too closed a standard even for a de jure one; China did not release the WAPI security algorithm to the scrutiny of the international community.
AB - Standards have become a basis of global competition among countries. Although there are many studies of standards and standardization, little is known about how international standards are set. Even less is known about how it occurs in the unprecedented case in which a developing country is actively involved in this process. In the past few years, China, leveraging the huge size of its domestic markets, has attempted to influence international technology standard setting. Standardization, especially at the international level, often revolves around building an alliance surrounding a particular technology. Actor-network theory (ANT) is a theory that helps analyze the ways in which actors form alliances and enroll other actors to strengthen such alliances surrounding a technology. Therefore, we see a fit between the study of standard setting and ANT. In this paper, we use ANT to investigate the process of mobile standard setting in an international context where firms, industry consortia, and governments collaborate and compete in complex ways. It is found that China's attempt to set WAPI as a national standard failed in enrolling other actors mainly due to the fact that WAPI was too closed a standard even for a de jure one; China did not release the WAPI security algorithm to the scrutiny of the international community.
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=33746878307&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jsis.2005.10.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jsis.2005.10.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33746878307
VL - 15
SP - 177
EP - 195
JO - Journal of Strategic Information Systems
JF - Journal of Strategic Information Systems
SN - 0963-8687
IS - 3
ER -