The Technology Innovation System in Japan

In recent years, many pieces of the Japanese puzzle have been identified and described as lessons for Western businessmen to learn. But the pieces are part of an interlocking system and to understand the role of each piece, it's necessary to see the whole. In the Japanese technology innovation system there are many parts—companies, universities, research institutes, government—and the way they are put together is the subject of this article by Joseph MacDowall. He points out some very unique characteristics about the way the system works. But he also points out some characteristics that are very much Western in origin. This article is based on the personal observations of the author, made during in-depth discussions he held during site visits to over 20 industrial plants or to their research and development laboratories, 25 government research institutes, and at least eight Japanese universities. During the four years he lived in Japan, Mr. MacDowall participated in discussions on the subjects of research, technology, work life, and Japanese culture.     

Opening up the innovation process: the role of technology aggressiveness

Besides acquiring external knowledge, many firms have begun to actively commercialize technology, for example, by means of out-licensing. This increase in inward and outward technology transactions reflects the new paradigm of open innovation. Most prior research into open innovation is limited to theoretical considerations and case studies, whereas other lines of research have focused either on external technology acquisition or exploitation. In an integrative view, we consider inward and outward technology transactions as the main directions of open innovation. Moreover, technology aggressiveness, which constitutes an important dimension of technology strategy, is identified as a major determinant of open innovation. Data from a survey of 154 industrial firms are used to test three hypotheses relating technology aggressiveness, external technology acquisition, and external technology exploitation. In addition, clusters of firms with homogeneous strategies regarding technology aggressiveness and open innovation are identified.     

How to distinguish innovative suppliers? Identifying innovative suppliers as new task for purchasing

For companies operating under unfavorable macroeconomic conditions, such as high wage/high tax countries in central Europe, innovation has become a central theme for survival. If there is one thing that has changed in innovation management during the last decade, it is the growing reliance on external sources of technology. As a consequence, a new task for purchasing arises, as firms need to understand which suppliers actually do have high potential contributing to the innovativeness of the firm and which do not. This paper focuses on the conceptual basis and derives propositions on the nature of innovative suppliers: specialized, technically competent firms, located in the proximity of the buyer, being embedded in a trusted and intensive relationship are identified as having a higher probability to be the core innovative suppliers. These criteria can serve to refine strategic sourcing decisions and improve communication between engineering and purchasing professionals.     

Towards an integrated framework for managing the process of innovation

Innovation has become a major driving force for business growth and success. However, successful and sustained innovation represents challenges rooted in technological uncertainties, ambiguous market signals and embryonic competitive structures. Notably, in the management of innovation, many challenges still remain in both theory and practice, which demand improved managerial approaches. In this context, the development of a practical and explicit management framework for the process of innovation could be beneficial. This research sets out to develop the concept of ‘Innovation Readiness Levels’ (IRL), an explicit model for managing the process of incremental innovation. Basically, IRL is a framework depicting the development of an innovation over its lifecycle. Within the emerging framework proposed in this paper, five key aspects that determine the effective implementation of innovation are identified. The lifecycle of innovation is then divided into six phases, and for each phase, associated assessment aspects and criteria are identified. By providing better monitoring and control, IRL is intended to help implement innovation over the lifecycle more effectively. It is also expected to apply as a management tool, for which guidance of use is suggested.     

Technology transfer as technological learning: a source of competitive advantage for firms with limited R&D resources

The objective of this article is to answer why and how firms in developing countries with limited R&D resources can gain sustainable competitive advantage through technology transfer (TT). Successful firms are those that can accumulate competence through internal technological learning after transferring technologies from external technology sources. Organizational intelligence, firm specificity of technology, and causal ambiguity are identified as three mediators between technological learning performance and several antecedents previously discussed in the literature. A survey of Taiwanese manufacturers is conducted to explore the technological learning phenomenon as an integral part of TT, which is important but often neglected. This article also provides an interesting research setting for the evaluation of technological learning theories.     

我国技术创新绩效评价与国际比较

本文运用数据包络分析模型对我国1995~2008年技术创新绩效进行评价以及对我国各地区的技术创新绩效进行测评,并将我国技术创新绩效与美国、日本等部分国家进行比较分析,为提高我国技术创新绩效提出了几点建议。     

Universal intellectual property rights: Too much of a good thing?

Developing countries’ incentives to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) are studied in a model of vertical innovation. Enforcing IPR boosts export opportunities to advanced economies but slows down technological transfers and incentives to invest in R&D. Asymmetric protection of IPR, strict in the North and lax in the South, leads in many cases to a higher world level of innovation than universal enforcement. IPR enforcement is U-shaped in the relative size of the export market compared to the domestic one: rich countries and small/poor countries enforce IPR, the former to protect their innovations, the latter to access foreign markets, while large emerging countries free-ride on rich countries’ technology to serve their internal demand.     

Mobile service innovation: A European failure

The continuing absence of innovation in Europe’s mobile services industry is identified and characterised here, with such examples as mobile Internet and mobile music. Innovation failure is a critical factor leading to a lack of high-income jobs, network effects, and price reductions for data services. Most mobile service innovations have been made in Japan in ‘clubs of operators’ with their suppliers. Apple USA followed the same model of control with its iPhone. Conversely, a lack of this critical type of competition characterises European operators. Revenues per citizen are in some countries similar to those in Japan, but with handsets with less functions. Europe and all other regions face the challenge of competing with Japanese and US innovators. The lessons to be learned are (1) becoming aware of the situation, (2) allocating spectrum that covers a sufficient population size to allow technological competition, and (3) developing a strong customer orientation.     

The Influence of Regulation and Disruptive Potential on Incumbents' Submarket Entry Decision and Success in the Context of a Network Industry

This paper uses the theoretical perspectives of disruptive innovation, network externalities, and regulation to study the submarket strategies of incumbent firms that operate in a regulated network industry. In this setting, the impact of potentially disruptive innovations might be different because of the tighter regulation of incumbent firms. By analyzing the entry and success patterns of incumbent mobile network operators (MNOs) in the public hotspot markets in 17 Western European countries, we focus on how regulation and network effects as well as disruption factors influence the incumbent firms' strategies. In doing so, this paper departs from prior research that has primarily focused on unregulated industries and combines contradicting explanations from disruptive innovation theory, the motivation/ability framework, regulation theory, as well as network effects to provide a comprehensive analysis on how incumbents behave in a regulated network industry that is being confronted with a potentially disruptive innovation. In particular, while disruptive innovation theory predicts that the incumbents' vast experience in an industry could cause them to avoid entering new submarkets created by potentially disruptive innovations, the desire to avoid regulation could encourage such submarket entry. Furthermore, in regulated network industries, incumbent firms might have a stronger motivation to enter new submarkets as the importance of single customers and high market shares could be substantially different. These contrasting insights are used to develop an integrative research model and to derive hypotheses on incumbents' submarket entry decision and success. Drawing on cross‐sectional, multicountry data of 62 MNOs that operate in 17 Western European countries, this study uses logit and tobit regressions to test the impact of disruption factors, regulation, and network externalities on the entry decision and success of incumbent firms. The results reveal that the incumbent MNOs are caught in an area of conflict between the regulated industry context and their international technology strategy. The findings suggest that the incumbent MNOs' motivation and ability to escape regulation positively influenced their submarket entry and success in the public hotspot market. Thus, the potentially disruptive scenario was successfully turned into a potentially sustaining one as the incumbent MNOs could enhance their presence in the mobile broadband market. The testing on a multicountry basis as well as the positive influence of ethnocentric technology strategies for public hotspots, which are devised in the headquarters' location and are then brought out internationally, shed new light on an industry that has typically been characterized by country‐by‐country decisions. These findings may also reveal challenges for future research on disruptive innovations in multinational industries and expose future challenges for regulative authorities and managers. This paper thereby adds to the theory of disruptive innovation as it includes the influence of regulation on incumbents in network industries. Additionally, this study expands on previous findings on the disruptive potential of wireless local area network technology by employing a multi‐country analysis in 17 Western European countries.     

中小企业技术创新的战略分析

伴随着我国市场经济的不断发展,中小企业在中国经济社会发展的地位和作用越来越重要。这也和世界各国中小企业的发展是一致的。在当今世界上,不管是发达国家、新兴工业化国家、还是发展中国家,都把发展中小企业作为振兴经济的战略措施,已形成了中小企业发展的世界性大潮。本文首先阐述中小企业技术创新的意义,然后分析中小企业技术创新的研究现状,在此基础上着重剖析技术创新的影响因素,最后提出提升技术创新的途径。     

Development of Novel Products Through Intraorganizational and Interorganizational Networks

The pendulum appears to be swinging away from the merger mania of the 1980s, with many leaner-and meaner organizations refocusing on their core competencies. However, these more focused organizations often lack the breadth of skills and expertise necessary for developing products and services which cut across traditional technological and marketing boundaries. Complex product systems such as those under development in the home automation industry include elements from such disparate sectors as consumer electronics, telecommunications, construction, and energy. A narrow focus may prevent the novel forms of innovation necessary for successful development of such products. Using the home automation industry as an example, Joe Tidd examines the challenges involved in the development of complex product systems. When products and services cut across traditional marketing and technological boundaries, radical innovation is difficult because different firms and industries are typically responsible for developing the various subsystems and components. Successful development efforts may require novel forms of innovation–for example, architectural innovation and technology fusion. Architectural innovation involves changes in the way the components of a product are linked together, but leaves the core design concepts untouched. Technology fusion creates new products and market opportunities through the blending of diverse technologies from various fields. Two organizational factors affect a firm's ability to develop and commercialize new products based on novel forms of innovation: the internal organization of the firm, and the firm's links with other organizations, including suppliers, customers, and networks of collaborating organizations. Within a firm, the development of complex product systems is likely to require managing across traditional product-division boundaries. The breadth of competencies required may necessitate strong interfirm linkages. Comparing organizational approaches and the networks of alliances for home automation in the United States, Europe, and Japan, it appears that European firms tend to be more narrowly focused then American and Japanese firms. A rigid focus on core competencies may cause these European firms to overlook the potential for new products. Because various technologies and industries are involved, open networks are more effective than closed networks or alliances. European and American firms tend to favor closed strategic alliances, while Japanese firms typically participate in open networks and overlapping consortia. This approach gives Japanese firms an edge in the home automation industry.     

An inquiry on dimensions of external technology search and their influence on technological innovations: evidence from Chinese firms

A central part of technological innovation for industrial firms involves search for new external knowledge. A well‐established stream of literature on firms' external knowledge search has demonstrated that firms investing in broader search may have a great ability to innovate. In this paper, we explore the influences of technology search on firms' technological innovation performance along three distinctive dimensions: technical, geographic, and temporal dimensions, using a unique panel data set containing information on Chinese firms that were active in technology in‐licensing and patenting during the period 2000–2009. Our findings reveal that Chinese firms' technological innovation performances are related to external technology search in quite different ways from the ones suggested in the extant literature using evidence from developed countries. We find that Chinese firms searching ‘locally’ along the technical dimension have better technological innovation performance than those searching ‘distantly’. However, when a Chinese firm in‐license relatively old (mature) technologies or those from geographically nearby areas, it will be less bounded to searching familiar technical knowledge.     

How to analyze technology lifecycle from the perspective of patent characteristics? the cases of DVDs and hard drives

This study aims to analyze the technology lifecycle from the perspective of the dynamics of patent characteristics; the dynamics of patent characteristics are proposed as an approach for characterizing technology lifecycle in this study. DVD and hard drive technologies, which have already experienced their complete technology lifecycles, were selected for analyzing their patent characteristics as a function of the different stages of their technology lifecycles to thus obtain the objective of this research. The results obtained in this study provide a channel to assess the nature of firms’ innovation strategies along technology lifecycles. It can be observed that (1) patents attempt to cite more prior patent or non-patent references at the latter stages to find more technological or scientific sources that can contribute to technological innovation, (2) most litigated patents are granted in the Growth stage, so it is expected that patents in the Growth stage should be more important and, thus, more relevant to dominant design than the patents granted in other stages.     

Transferring industrial technology to less developed countries

This article discusses the motivations for industrial firms to transfer technology to less developed countries (LDCs), where technological innovation is most critically needed. The types of technology most appropriate for transfer are described, with special emphasis on technologies that do not threaten a firm's economic interests. The various channels through which technology can be transferred are specified.     

环境规制对区域技术创新的影响研究

本文基于2000～2014年省际面板数据,实证考察了三大区域环境规制对技术创新的直接与间接影响。研究表明：东部的环境规制强度高抑制了技术创新,中部与西部地区环境规制强度越高越有助于提高技术创新,而且各地区核心技术创新指标不同,东部地区最突出的技术创新是实用新型与发明型,中部地区是外观设计型与发明型,西部是实用型与外观设计型;环境规制的间接作用在东、中两地区表现为正向作用,在西部表现为负向作用。其他因素的影响在各地区表现不同。最后综合研究结论,针对如何提高地区技术创新水平提出了相关政策建议。     

Inconclusive Innovation “Returns”: A Meta‐Analysis of Research on Innovation in New Product Development*

This research on studies that have empirically examined the construct innovation provides a meta‐analysis of the marketing, management, and new product literatures. The study extends previous meta‐analytic works by drawing on 70 independent samples from 64 studies (published from 1970 to 2006) with a total sample size of 12,921. The overall objective is to propose a synthesized model that includes technological turbulence, market turbulence, customer orientation, competitor orientation, organizational structure, innovation, and new product performance. Six baseline hypotheses were developed and tested. The goal is not only to derive empirical generalizations from these literatures but also to investigate sources of inconsistencies in the findings. Four substantive and two methodological artifacts were tested to determine whether they moderate model relationships (i.e., whether the effect sizes differ for any of the six baseline hypotheses). The potential moderators were project versus program level of analysis, the nature of change required by the innovation, service versus product, country of the data's origin, continuous versus categorical measurement, and the number of scales used. From a theoretical perspective, the results corroborated the resource‐based view framework regarding the determinants and the performance outcome of innovation. New product performance (the performance outcome) is a direct consequence of innovation, and this effect is stronger when the data are collected from Western countries. This relationship holds regardless of whether the level of analysis is the new product program versus project or whether the innovation is a product or a service, a robust result relevant to researchers and managers alike. As for the determinants of innovation, the results were as follows. While market turbulence is overall not a direct antecedent to innovation, technological turbulence is overall positively related (especially when market discontinuities are considered or when the data are collected from Asian countries). Customer orientation encourages new product innovation overall, but especially at the program (as opposed to project) level in Western countries. The effect of competitor orientation is also positive. The results for either orientation construct or either turbulence construct held whether the level of analysis was project versus program or whether services versus products were examined. However, the relationship of mechanistic organizational structures to innovation, although positive in the overall sample, did vary by product (positive) versus service (negative).     

A framework, process and tool for managing technology‐based assets

Technology organisations centre their business on the development of new technology‐based offerings (i.e. products and services). The strategic management of technology‐based assets is therefore crucial for these organisations as an imperative for business success. However, these assets are often intangible and reflect future rather than current value and are therefore difficult to manage when using traditional managerial concepts. This study investigates integrative mechanisms addressing the management of technology‐based assets and offerings in a technology organisation. The approach taken was to study the views and practices regarding the management of technology‐based assets in a number of strategic units of a technology organisation (CSIR, South Africa). The study maintains that the management of technology‐based assets and offerings requires clear strategic management of the process of technological innovation with special emphasis on the management of the intellectual capital (IC) and the intellectual property (IP) of the organisation. The study describes a framework linking the core processes supporting the management of technology‐based assets and offerings with other organisational elements such as leadership, strategy, and culture. Specific key links between the core process of innovation and the strategic management of investment in technology‐based assets using a portfolio approach are discussed.     

Stock of downstream complementary assets as a catalyst for product innovation during technological change in the U.S. machine tool industry

Research summary : We investigate the effect of incumbents' stock of downstream complementary assets on their product innovation during a disruptive technological change. We theorize that a firm's stock of downstream complementary assets, by providing critical information about shifting demand conditions, will play a catalytic role in firm adaptation during such a change. Using the advent of disruptive computer numerical control machine tools in the U.S. machine tool industry during the 1970s and 1980s as the context, we find that firms with greater stocks of downstream complementary assets are likely to be product innovation leaders during such a change. Managerial summary : Disruptive changes are challenging firms across industries. We concentrate on the U.S. machine tool industry during the 1970s and 1980s when Japanese manufacturers with disruptive computer numerical control systems challenged the U.S. manufacturers. We find that, under the threat of disruption, the greater the stock of downstream complementary assets a U.S. machine tool manufacturer has, the more likely it is to be the product innovation leader with the disruptive technology. Our findings provide novel insights for managers in companies that face disruptive changes and can help them avoid the consequences of such changes as predicted by prior research. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of technological innovation in the small firms of Korea

This study identifies the factors determining technological innovations in the small firms in Korea. Two groups of 24 innovative and 25 noninnovative small firms are compared on four categories of variables: environmental, strategic, structural, and top management characteristics, which were found to be important determinants of technological innovation in prior research in developed countries. A multiple discriminant analysis reveals that two top managerial characteristics (risk-taking propensity and tolerance for ambiguity), environmental heterogeneity, environmental scanning strategy, and professionalization of organizational structure are the most significant factors discriminating innovative from noninnovative small firms in Korea. The findings suggest that predominant determinants of technological innovation vary according to the types of organization and, in the case of small firms, managerial attitudes toward innovation is the most critical factor. Other strategic and policy implications for the management of innovation in the small firm context are discussed.     

Stalling innovation of Cognitive Radio: The case for a dedicated frequency band

After more than a decade of frantic R&D efforts, Cognitive Radio (CR) technology continues to fail to pass the first developmental milestone of a working prototype, suggesting that the CR innovation process may be stalling. This paper analyzes possible reasons for this situation from the perspective of innovation management and economics. The CR innovation process has developed in a complex environment shaped by a combination of technology-push and market-pull forces. This paper shows that this process is being stifled by two barriers emerging from the current reliance of CR technology on opportunistic dynamic spectrum access as the sole means for entry into the wireless market. The technology-push is affected by the barrier of technological complexities linked to the requirement to protect highly sensitive incumbent systems. The market-pull forces are being negated by market lock-in and a strong status quo of well-established wireless players. This paper argues that overcoming these barriers and revitalizing the practical development of CR could be possible with the aid of light-touch governmental intervention. This could take the form of designating a dedicated CR band, which would benefit CR through less strict spectrum access requirements. A vibrant cognitive environment could flourish in this type of band, supporting CR innovation.