# Managing technological sovereignty: a systematic review of semiconductor industry policy and regional ecosystem governance

## TL;DR

This paper explores how semiconductor industry policies succeed or fail based on how well they align with regional ecosystems and national strategies.

## Contribution

The study introduces a 'dual fit' framework linking macro-level policy goals with meso and micro-level regional contexts.

## Key findings

- Policy effectiveness depends on aligning governance mechanisms with national security goals.
- Regional absorptive capacity and dynamic capabilities are critical for successful implementation.
- Failure often stems from misaligned incentives or neglecting local context.

## Abstract

As the semiconductor industry shifts from a logic of efficiency to one of technological sovereignty and supply chain resilience, engineering managers and policymakers face unprecedented uncertainty. While nations are relaunching industrial policies to mitigate geopolitical risks, a critical puzzle remains: why do similar macro-strategies yield divergent outcomes across different regional innovation ecosystems? Existing literature tends to bifurcate between macro-level state competition and micro-level firm strategies, creating a theoretical disconnect.

Drawing on Merton's Middle-Range Theory, this study bridges this gap by adopting a “structure-process-function” perspective. We conducted a systematic review of 104 core articles from the Web of Science Core Collection to diagnose the meso-level governance mechanisms that mediate national strategy and regional context. We propose a “dual fit” analytical framework, arguing that policy effectiveness is contingent upon two simultaneous alignments: (1) “strategy-execution fit” (macro-meso), where governance mechanisms (process) must align with national security goals (structure); and (2) “execution-context fit” (meso-micro), where interventions must be embedded within the region's specific endowments and dynamic capabilities.

Our findings identify two primary failure modes: “governance failure” (misalignment of incentives) and “contextual failure” (neglect of absorptive capacity).

This study contributes to engineering management theory by providing a multi-level mechanism to diagnose policy-ecosystem fit, offering actionable insights for managing semiconductor supply chains in a fragmented global order.