Managing Technological Sovereignty: A Systematic Review of Semiconductor Industry Policy and Regional Ecosystem Governance

Jingwen Cai¹Chunning Wang¹Yifen Yin¹Waiin Ho¹Hui Jin¹Xuexian Fang²Haoqian Hu^1*

• ¹Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Macao Polytechnic University, Macau, Macao, SAR China
• ²School and Hospital of Stomatology, Guangdong Engineering Research Center of Oral Restoration and Reconstruction & Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Basic and Applied Research of Oral Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China

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.