This dissertation aims to open the knowledge production “black box” of laptop contract manufacturers in Taiwan and their factories in China from 1988 to 2012. By examining their engineering practices, I demonstrate the complexity and changing dynamics of design-manufacturing laptops across different time periods, which not only refutes a perception of linear progress from manufacturing to design for Taiwan’s industry, but also challenges the idea that manufacturing lacks innovation and importance. I show how manufacturing and design capability are equally crucial and argue that it is also the intensive interaction between design and manufacturing, internally and externally, that matters. I develop a concept, field knowledge, to describe this interactiveness that involves frequent multiple-sited and trans-organizational exchanges between actors from heterogeneous backgrounds.

https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/39461/ll289.pdf;sequence=1