Abstract
Studies related to the “mirroring hypothesis” found that in order to gain competitiveness, component manufacturers must acquire the technological knowledge of other related components or systemic knowledge of the overall product. However, how single-component manufacturers can acquire a broad knowledge base that extends beyond their areas of business has not been clarified. We conduct a case analysis of the hard disk drive (HDD) industry and investigate the R&D activities of the component-specialized manufacturing firms. We use patent data and focus on three levels of analysis: organization, group, and individual. The results of the analysis show that system-related architectural knowledge can be accumulated by a relatively small number of cross-sectoral engineers mediating different technological fields. The characteristics of cross-sectoral engineers are related to the star scientists and gatekeepers previous studies have examined, but are different in some aspects.
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