Assessing the Effectiveness of Technology Policy--A Long-Term View

Innovation policy is increasingly concerned with mobilising a broad range of resources to support the development of firm-level technological capability. It is aimed at dealing with 'market failure', which arises when firms are confronted with technological challenges in which they lack the necessary experience or resources. Both internal agency and independent evaluation of such innovation policies are routinely undertaken but most are conducted during the lifetime of the programmes or soon after they have ended. There are few examples of such evaluations being able to take a long-term perspective. This paper explores the impacts of a UK government technology programme on the process and product application of microelectronic technologies (MAP) that ran between 1978 and 1986. Via interviews with a sample of firms who participated in scheme, the research explored their subsequent use of microelectronics, government support schemes and expert consultants. The study argues for more regular long-term reviews of technology promoting schemes as an aid to learning and capability enhancement in policy-making.     

Innovation strategy of local pharmaceutical firms in Korea: a multivariate analysis

This article examines 37 local pharamaceutical firms in Korea to identify different patterns of innovation behaviour associated with four types of firms, which are categorized by two variables: the scale of operation and technological capability. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses support the hypotheses that these four types of firms exhibit different innovation strategies and in turn the level of performance they achieved. Specifically, large firms with high technological capability diversify their efforts, investing in their own R & D and tapping foreign capabilities, and as a result exhibit the highest degree of innovativeness, while large firms with low technological capability resort primarily to the transfer of foreign technology for short-term profitability. In contrast, small firms with high technological capability rely mainly on their own R & D efforts with the assistance from local R & D institutes and enjoy the highest growth rate, whereas small firms with low technological capability imitate technologically low-grade products by hiring experienced technical personnel from other firms. There are also fragmented indications that many local firms have long evolved from small firms with low capability to large firms with high capability. Finally, managerial and theoretical implications for the innovation strategies in LDCs/NICsE are discussed.     

技术信息获取、政府科技资助影响企业创新能力吗

技术和资金是企业创新活动的关键要素，采用2014-2017年中国内地31个省级行政区数据，对技术信息获取、政府科技资助是否影响企业创新能力进行理论假设和实证检验。结果表明：技术信息获取对企业创新能力有显著积极影响；政府科技资助对企业创新活动有明显“抑制效应”；技术信息获取与政府科技资助协同作用对企业创新能力有显著负向影响。结论对厘清政府科技资助对企业创新能力是“扶持效应”抑或“抑制效应”，及如何建设技术信息网络等基础设施、制定政府科技资助政策有一定借鉴意义。     

Innovation strategy of local pharmaceutical firms in Korea: a multivariate analysis

This article examines 37 local pharamaceutical firms in Korea to identify different patterns of innovation behaviour associated with four types of firms, which are categorized by two variables: the scale of operation and technological capability. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses support the hypotheses that these four types of firms exhibit different innovation strategies and in turn the level of performance they achieved. Specifically, large firms with high technological capability diversify their efforts, investing in their own R & D and tapping foreign capabilities, and as a result exhibit the highest degree of innovativeness, while large firms with low technological capability resort primarily to the transfer of foreign technology for short-term profitability. In contrast, small firms with high technological capability rely mainly on their own R & D efforts with the assistance from local R & D institutes and enjoy the highest growth rate, whereas small firms with low technological capability imitate technologically low-grade products by hiring experienced technical personnel from other firms. There are also fragmented indications that many local firms have long evolved from small firms with low capability to large firms with high capability. Finally, managerial and theoretical implications for the innovation strategies in LDCs/NICsE are discussed.     

区域科技资源共享平台集成服务能力结构维度研究

随着我国全面实施创新驱动发展战略,科技资源共享平台已成为国家和地区集聚科技资源、创新服务需求的重要载体,培育和提升平台集成服务能力,是发挥科技资源共享平台创新服务支撑作用与杠杆效应的有效途径和战略选择。首先界定区域科技资源共享平台集成服务能力的内涵与特征,运用解释结构模型（ISM）对平台集成服务能力的关键要素及层次结构进行识别,进而选取广东、上海、北京和黑龙江等省市科技资源共享平台作为典型案例进行比较分析。结果表明,区域科技资源共享平台集成服务能力由资源集成能力、需求集成能力、服务匹配能力、运行管理能力4个维度构成,典型案例平台各有优势与特色,但在不同能力维度仍有提升空间。结论可为区域科技资源共享平台集成服务能力培育和提升提供理论方法指导,为区域科技资源共享平台更好地服务于战略性新兴产业创新和持续发展提供有效决策依据。     

Infratechnologies and the role of government

Government support of technological change is a complex issue because barriers resulting in underinvestment exist to some degree in most industries, so difficult allocation decisions for limited government resources are necessary. The structure and timing of government support is further complicated because in any one technological area, the nature and severity of underinvestment phenomena vary during the evolution or life cycles of the relevant industries. This paper focuses on the methods and rationale for government support of two elements in industrial technology: generic technology, from which specific products and processes (i.e., innovations) are derived, and “infratechnologies,” which are necessary for the evolution of the generic technology and its applications. Particular emphasis is given to infratechnologies because they are largely supplied by sources outside the industry and have consequently been largely overlooked in previous discussions of industrial policy. A case study of one major source of infratechnology, including quantitative estimates of industry impacts, is presented.     

The evolution and use of a policy and research tool: assessing the technological capabilities of firms

Firms differ widely in their technological capabilities. Innovation policies are likely to be more or less successful depending upon the level of such abilities of those firms to which a policy is aimed. Without data on the proficiencies, strengths and weaknesses of firms within the target group(s), the construction and application of innovation or industrial policies are likely to miss salient factors in the ability of firms to benefit from the support that is intended. An in-depth knowledge of firms’ capabilities can allow policy-makers to target support according to the specific needs of firms. This paper describes the Technology capability audit tool (or CAT) that was designed to assist policy-makers in differentiating between firms and in understanding their level of ‘innovation readiness’. Examples of the use of the CAT are presented from South Korea, Thailand, Ireland, Brazil and the UK.     

技术创新资源配置的双重调节论

文章对资源配置的市场调节、政府调节、双重调节机制,以及我国技术创新资源配置中的双重调节作用进行了理论分析,选择美国的自由市场经济模式、德国的社会市场经济模式、日本的政府协调型主导市场经济模式和韩国的政府干预型主导市场经济模式等技术创新资源配置模式为分析对象,通过对上述国家四种模式中的双重调节作用进行比较,基本结论是:创新驱动发展战略需要有效发挥对技术创新资源配置的双重调节作用;充分发挥市场在技术创新资源配置中的决定性作用,进一步加大市场化改革力度,发挥和完善市场机制的作用,推进技术创新资源的市场化配置,是我国深化科技体制改革的关键之一;充分发挥政府在技术创新资源配置中的导向性作用,以迅速提升我国技术创新能力。     

Indigenous technological capabilities,emerging market firms and the aerospace industry

While emerging market economies have developed significant technological capabilities and increased their share of global value-added in aerospace, they have done so largely through utilising foreign direct investment (FDI) and offset arrangements to enter supply chains that remain dominated by European and American firms. The paper examines whether emerging markets are developing indigenous technological capability in aerospace technologies. Drawing on patent data from the Thomson Innovation database, the study seeks to understand whether anchor tenant capability is indeed forming in emerging markets. A tech-mining method is applied. The study suggests that China, in particular, has dramatically increased its innovative capacity in the area. However, the data also demonstrate the significant advantages enjoyed by incumbent firms from Europe and the USA, suggesting that the complexity of aircraft R&D remains a formidable barrier that can only be surmounted by determined government policies and anchor firms equipped with substantial innovation capabilities.     

Harnessing the Firm-specific Knowledge of the Maintenance Workforce for Organizational Competitiveness

This paper argues, with the support of the empirical data from five case-study firms, that maintenance workers can play a key role in advancing technology used by their firm and contributing to its long-term competitiveness. Maintenance workers can contribute their firm-specific knowledge which they gain from their experience of working with the equipment in two ways: by providing feedback on asset performance to other departments/firms who design, select or install new technology/equipment; and by making the newly introduced and/or existing technology more suitable to the working environment. Yet, this valuable potential of maintenance employees is rarely appropriated by firms, of which many are enthusiastically seeking additional competitiveness. If 'learning by doing' is an important way for firms to learn and to compete, then this wider role of the maintenance workforce should be harnessed by firms that seek long-term competitiveness.     

Technology and worker coopratives: some UK evidence and a framework for investigation

This paper considers the relationship between cooperatives i n the 'new wave' and the technology they use. Data and examples from the UK are presented to show that there is no general support either for the 'optimistic' hypothesis that cooperatives are necessarily able to make humanizing choices about technology or for the 'pessimistic' hypothesis that they are completely constrained by technology. A framework is developed for analysing the factors which may or may not allow technological choices. The paper goes on to form a new hypothesis in two parts: firstly, that small firms i n general have more freedom to make choices about technology the more they have independence from large firms and the market, and the more they are i n areas of product innovation, particularly IT-based innovation; secondly, given a degree of freedom to make such choices, the choice is more likely to be made successfully in the direction of humanizing uses of technology the more there is potential for identif;cation between job, product and social or political aims. The paper concludes by describing a research project now under way exploring the relative importance of these factors in established UK worker cooperatives.     

Harnessing the Firm-specific Knowledge of the Maintenance Workforce for Organizational Competitiveness

This paper argues, with the support of the empirical data from five case-study firms, that maintenance workers can play a key role in advancing technology used by their firm and contributing to its long-term competitiveness. Maintenance workers can contribute their firm-specific knowledge which they gain from their experience of working with the equipment in two ways: by providing feedback on asset performance to other departments/firms who design, select or install new technology/equipment; and by making the newly introduced and/or existing technology more suitable to the working environment. Yet, this valuable potential of maintenance employees is rarely appropriated by firms, of which many are enthusiastically seeking additional competitiveness. If 'learning by doing' is an important way for firms to learn and to compete, then this wider role of the maintenance workforce should be harnessed by firms that seek long-term competitiveness.     

Coupling relationships and synergistic mechanisms between technology management capability and technological capability in product innovation: a simulation study

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the dynamic co-evolution of technology management capability and technological capability in the system of product innovation. It is motivated by the increasing attention that product innovation has received recently, as it is considered one of the most important factors that can bring about competitive advantages for firms to compete with their rivals in the current competitive business environment. Framing the system of product innovation as a complex adaptive system and focusing on the roles of technology management capability and technological capability in the system, the most suitable synergistic mechanisms between technology management capability and technological capability that can make the system reach the highest fitness under their diverse coupling relationships are identified by means of NK fitness landscape model. The simulation results show that there are matches between the coupling relationships among the elements of technology management capability and technological capability and their synergistic mechanisms in the system of product innovation. This paper provides a better understanding of the relationships between technology management capability and technological capability and managerial implications for firms to innovate products successfully and promptly and thus improve their competitive advantages.     

Technology and worker coopratives: some UK evidence and a framework for investigation

This paper considers the relationship between cooperatives i n the ‘new wave’ and the technology they use. Data and examples from the UK are presented to show that there is no general support either for the ‘optimistic’ hypothesis that cooperatives are necessarily able to make humanizing choices about technology or for the ‘pessimistic’ hypothesis that they are completely constrained by technology. A framework is developed for analysing the factors which may or may not allow technological choices. The paper goes on to form a new hypothesis in two parts: firstly, that small firms i n general have more freedom to make choices about technology the more they have independence from large firms and the market, and the more they are i n areas of product innovation, particularly IT-based innovation; secondly, given a degree of freedom to make such choices, the choice is more likely to be made successfully in the direction of humanizing uses of technology the more there is potential for identif;cation between job, product and social or political aims. The paper concludes by describing a research project now under way exploring the relative importance of these factors in established UK worker cooperatives.     

Discontinuous innovation capability accumulation in latecomer natural resource-processing firms

Most of the studies that describe the building of innovation capability in emerging and developing economies have focused on the ways in which latecomer firms develop continuously towards advanced capability levels along existing technological trajectories, particularly for the assembled products industries, especially in Asia. A slightly different approach is adopted herein by focusing on pathways of discontinuous capability building of firms in natural resource-processing industries. By drawing on evidence from a variety of case studies taken from 13 forestry, pulp, and paper firms in Brazil in the period 1950-2007, it was found that: (1) in contrast with the majority of case studies reported in the literature, the pathways followed by firms in their accumulation of innovation capability involved a qualitative departure from the established technological trajectory at an early stage in the development of their capability; (2) the pathways of firms along the new technological trajectories were nevertheless characterised by a high degree of variability (from intermediate to world leading innovators) in terms of the levels and speeds of the accumulation of innovation capability; (3) firms that have attained progressively higher levels of innovative performance have more rapidly developed a combination of internal and external research-based arrangements in order to undertake increasingly complex, but firm-centred innovation efforts. This paper sheds some light on some of the discussions that relate to the role of natural resources in the patterns of industrial progress and growth in those countries endowed with particular natural resource-based industries. It also provides a methodological contribution to the study of the long-term innovation strategies that make use of the dynamics of capability building, especially within natural resource-processing industries.     

International,intra-national and inter-firm knowledge diffusion and technological catch-up: the USA,Japan, Korea and Taiwan in the memory chip industry

Using data on US patent citations, this paper investigates the pattern of international, intranational and interfirm knowledge diffusion in the process of technological catch-up by Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese firms in the memory chip industry. First, regarding international diffusion, this paper finds that the ordering of citations is exactly the same as the order of entry into the industry: Taiwanese firms tend to cite Korean firms, Korean firms tend to cite Japanese firms and Japanese firms tend to cite US firms. Second, the degree of intranational knowledge diffusion is proportional to the level of technological capability or order of entry, although it is also affected by organisational differences among the firms. Third, the difference in patterns of interfirm knowledge reflects difference across organisations, such that big Korean group firms are less oriented toward interfirm knowledge diffusion compared with their Taiwanese small and medium enterprise (SME) counterparts. To explain such difference, the role of government research institutions has been highlighted, especially since the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) accounts for the lion's share of Taiwanese-held patents and in the spin-offs of many firms in the industry.     

HIGH‐TECH AND HIGH CAPABILITY IN A GROWTH MODEL*

A growth model is developed to substantiate the conventional wisdom that regards high‐tech high‐capability firms as an engine of sustained technological progress. High‐tech industries are characterized by abounding technological opportunities, which promote endogenous high capability firms due to a competitive escalation mechanism. While high‐tech high‐capability firms capitalize on and discharge the existing innovation potentials, they also contribute to recharge (due to knowledge spillovers). They are a source of growth and high wage rate. An inquiry into the reasons why the high‐tech/high‐capability growth mechanism is not widely adoptable across countries points to the role of the underlying corporate governance systems.     

Joint research and development projects as technology training ventures

This paper presents an empirically derived model of the process through which industrial firms that lack internal resources in a particular technology area to implement certain research and development (R&D) projects on their own, initiale nad implement them jointly with not-for-profit research institutions. Such joint R&D projects are typically initiated by smaller, technologically less advanced firms in developing countires, with the underlying objective of training themselves in the relevant technology area and acquiring new technological resources from more advanced local research institutions, while simultaneously and rapidly completing the immediate R&D project. This process model has been developed by drawing from and synthesizing several in-depth case studies of such projects. In developing countries, joint R&D projects of this nature are important, as they can be more effective than formal technology training programmes for not-for-profit research institutions to fulfil their charter by transerning their advanced technical knowledge to the relatively less advanced local industrial firms. Participating firms that seek to their immediate interest, and therefore learn it rapidly and effectively. This paper adds to the scarce literature on ht process of organizational knowledge acquisition through contractual arrangements such as joint projects. It also enables both firms and research institutions to understand effective proceses for initiating and implementing such mutually beneficial joint R&D projects.     

Firms' Technological Trajectories and the Creation of Foreign Subsidiaries

Multinational firms are traditionally considered as firms possessing some technological lead and which are exploiting this proprietary advantage in international markets, but a growing literature has been arguing that multinational firms set up foreign subsidiaries not only as a means to exploit their own technology but also to enrich it. This paper provides some empirical evidence for this. The aim of the paper is to assess the effects of the creation of foreign subsidiaries on firms' technological trajectories.The idea is that by setting up subsidiaries in foreign countries, multinational firms can achieve some form of reverse technology transfer that can be expected to affect their technological trajectories.The empirical investigation uses data from 1992 to 1996 for a sample of 2185 Italian manufacturing firms. Results support the view that the creation of manufacturing subsidiaries has a positive impact on firms' productivity trajectories and this positive impact is greater when subsidiaries are created in regions where knowledge spillovers are expected to be relatively higher, such as the US.     

政府科研机构科技资源配置效率影响因素组态分析

结合超效率SBM模型和模糊集定性比较分析（fsQCA）法,以中国内地25个省级行政区政府科研机构为样本,探讨科技资源配置结构、配置方式和配置环境对省级政府科研机构科技资源配置效率提升的组态效应。研究发现：①单个要素不构成高科技资源配置效率的必要条件,但基础研究强度在科技资源配置效率提升方面发挥了较为普遍的作用;②5种组态均可带来高科技资源配置效率,分别为由基础研究构成的基础研究型组态;由基础研究和应用研究构成的科学研究型组态;由基础研究、计划配置和区域开放度构成的基础研究—环境型组态;由基础研究、市场配置、计划配置、产学研合作水平和区域开放度构成的基础研究—平衡型组态;由应用研究、产学研合作水平和区域开放度构成的应用研究—环境型组态。其中,基础研究型组态和基础研究—平衡型组态在提升科技资源配置效率方面更有效;③我国东西部地区政府科研机构科技资源配置效率提升路径存在显著差异。据此,提出各地区政府科研机构应“因地制宜”地采取匹配路径和针对性措施,以有效提升科技资源配置效率。