Early and late industrialization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Early and late industrialization - Essay Example These late industrialized nations assumed the role of learner ‘instead of the inventor & innovator’ as their economic and industrial development resulted through â€Å"borrowing and improving technologies which has already [been] developed by experiencing firm in more advanced nations† (Do the theories of ‘late industrialization’ explain national differences in the institutional and organisational characteristic of contemporary business? How do these ideas help to explain variations in economic performance?). However, one can notice that the economic growth of the late industrialist nations have been more rapid as they heavily depended on the successful models of institutional and organizational foundations tested by their forerunners. It was the American economist Abramowitz who coined the terms ‘forging ahead’, and ‘catching up’ to refer to the industrial and economic progress achieved by early and late industrial nations. Even though Britain forged ahead in the late 19th century with the new industrial revolution, USA, Germany and Japan caught up and even surpassed Great Britain’s achievements in many respects. According to Shin (1996), â€Å"the existence of forerunners has both complementary and competitive aspects to late comers’ development†: the late comers can benefit heavily from the successful models of the forerunners, but â€Å"they have to develop facing formidable competition from existing forerunners† (p. 2). The author is of the opinion that there have been only two instances of forging ahead in the modern industrial history-one by Britain in the late eighteenth century and the other by USA during the first half of the 20th century; he believes that the process of ‘catching up had a much greater impact than forging ahead’ in the growth of the world economy (Shin, 1996, p. 2). There is a close link between the nature of corporate governance and the industrial or economic development of a nation.