The research strategy in management of technological innovation

The increasing importance of technology in the application world has imposed high demand on the research community for insightful and useful principles about “management of technological innovation” (MTI). This paper examines the academic legacy in terms of conceptual categories, causal relationships and taxonomy of relevant systems, and asserts from a system perspective that MTI as an applied science is still in its infancy.Based on methodological argument, this paper warns of the danger of hasty compromise of strategically important topics to “popular” definition of “researchability,” and suggests several research guidelines and approaches for this young interdisciplinary discipline:

1. (1)To explore new frontiers, use “proximate variables,” consider contextual factors and causation in broad terms, conceptualize “independently,” and pay more attention to case study method.

2. (2)To understand driving forces, be aware of practice, and focus on internal dynamics.

3. (3)To transcend complexity, adopt a hierarchical structure perspective and state-and-flow concept, and condense findings into configurations.

Finally, this paper urges the formation of an overall research strategy to accelerate the accumulation of MTI grounded knowledge.     

Technological innovation strategy: how do technology life cycles change by technological area

Discussions on the patterns of technological innovation have significant implications in terms of the efficient distribution of national R&D resources and the establishment of corporate managerial strategies. This study is focused on calculating and analysing technology cycle time (TCT) by technological area based on patent data that can be used as easily accessible objective indicators for the purpose of modelling the patterns of technological innovation by period and technological area. The main technological areas handled by the study include medical science, vehicles, metallurgy, and computing. Of the patent data registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office from 1990 to 2014, International Patent Classification sub-class codes representing each technological area were selected to collect patent data, and to generate TCT statistics every five years. The TCT statistics generated is interpreted as the technological life cycle, to be used in modelling technological innovation patterns individualised by technology and period.     

Isolation and technological innovation

Despite its importance as a formative influence in evolutionary biology, the notion of isolation has received relatively little attention in evolutionary economics and its application to technological innovation. This paper makes the case that isolation, in many guises, is a pervasive and permanent feature of the economic landscape and that its implications for technological innovation deserve further analysis. Isolation and potential implications for innovation are discussed in the early part of the paper and case studies of two military innovations are then used to illustrate the value of explicitly recognising various forms of isolation in explaining observed aspects of innovation process and outcomes.     

Firm persistence in technological innovation: the relevance of organizational innovation

Organizational innovation favors technological innovation, but does it also influence persistence in technological innovation? This paper empirically investigates the pattern of technological innovation persistence and tests the potential impact of organizational innovation using firm-level data from three waves of French Community Innovation Surveys. The evidence indicates a positive effect of organizational innovation on persistence in technological innovation, according to the various measures of organizational innovation. Moreover, this impact is more significant for complex innovators, i.e. those who innovate in both products and processes. The results highlight the complexity of managing organizational practices with regard to the technological innovation of firms. They also add to understanding of the drivers of innovation persistence through the focus on an often forgotten dimension of innovation in a broader sense.     

On SD-oriented mechanism of technological innovation

If one enterprise just takes technological innovation as the way for economic profit but not the combinationalprofit of economy, society and ecology, it will never survive in this fierce competition market. Based on the relationshipbetween technological innovation and sustainable development, this paper brings forward that technological innovationmust take the sustainable1 development of society as the fundamental goal. Technological innovation should be the realimpulse for the development of society, economy and ecology. On the basis of the analysis on previous technologicalinnovation impetus mechanism, combined with the influential factors, this paper puts forward SD-oriented mechanism oftechnological innovation.     

Emerging patterns of complex technological innovation

Technological innovation is increasingly concerned with complex products and processes. The trend toward greater complexity is suggested by the fact that in 1970 complex technologies comprised 43% of the 30 most valuable world goods exports, but by 1996 complex technologies represented 84% of those goods. These technologies are innovated by self-organizing networks. Networks are those linked organizations that create, acquire, and integrate the diverse knowledge and skills required to innovate complex technologies. Accessing tacit knowledge (i.e., experienced-based, unwritten know-how) and integrating it with codified knowledge is a particular strength of many networks. Self-organization refers to the capacity networks have for reordering themselves into more complex structures (e.g., replacing individual managers with management teams), and for using more complex processes (e.g., evolving strategies) without centralized, detailed managerial guidance. Case studies of the innovation pathways traced by six complex technologies indicate that innovations can be grouped into three quite distinct patterns. Transformation: the launching of a new trajectory by a new coevolving network and technology. Normal: the coevolution of an established network and technology along an established trajectory. Transition: the coevolutionary movement to a new trajectory by an established network and technology. Policy makers and managers face the greatest challenge during those periods of movement from one innovation trajectory to another. These are periods of turbulence; they are the embodiment of Schumpeter's “gales of creative destruction.” This paper investigates how, in six case studies, core capabilities, complementary assets, organizational learning, path dependencies, and the selection environment varied among the innovation patterns. The paper builds on work reported in a recent book by the authors entitled: The Complexity Challenge: Technological Innovation for the 21st Century, Pinter, London, 1999.     

On positional consumption and technological innovation: an agent-based model

Positional behaviour is arguably a source of social externalities. Remedies for this market failure are defended by some authors and rejected by others. One of the issues discussed is the role that the competition for positional goods may have in generating technological innovation. This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of this process through the use of an agent-based model. Simulations show a plausible dynamics of the process of technological innovation as generated by consumption of positional nature. An interpretation of the results in the scope of the policy discussion in question is provided. The influence of key factors such as income inequality, the materialization of the Hirsch conjecture, and characteristics of the network of relative preferences, is analised. We also frame the potential interest of positional consumption and this model in particular in the context of the ongoing discussion among evolutionary economists on the behaviour of demand.     

Whatever works: Uncertainty and technological hybrids in medical innovation

The persistent uncertainty that looms over the search for solutions to health problems offers important conceptual insights for the study of technological change. This paper explores the notion of hybridization, namely the embodiment of multiple competing operational principles within a single medical device, as strategy to deal with the practical shortcomings due to said uncertainty. The history of the development of the hybrid artificial disc affords the elaboration of an alternative view of hybridization and, at the same time, the articulation of a dualism between medical science as area of basic research (e.g. what disease is) and as practical knowledge (e.g. how disease can be tackled).     

Convergence in Brazil: recent trends and long-run prospects

This paper applies to the analysis of the interstate income distribution in Brazil a set of techniques that have been widely used in the current empirical literature on growth and convergence. Usual measures of dispersion in the interstate income distribution (the coefficient of variation and Theil's index) suggest that sigma-convergence was an unequivocal feature of the regional growth experience in Brazil, between 1970 and 1986. After 1986, the process of convergence seems, however, to have slowed down almost to a halt. A standard growth model is shown to fit the regional data well and to explain a substantial amount of the variation in growth rates, providing estimates of the speed of (conditional) beta-convergence of approximately 3% p.a. Different estimates of the long-run distribution implied by the recent growth trends point towards further reductions in the interstate income inequality, but also suggest that the relative per capita incomes of a significant number of states and the number of ‘very poor’ and ‘poor’ states were, in 1995, already quite close to their steady-state values.     

AIDing contraception: HIV and recent trends in abortion

Using a difference-in-differences estimation framework and state-level data, we investigate the potential role of HIV/AIDS in contributing to declining abortion utilization in the United States. Our results suggest that the perceived risk of HIV contraction negatively affected unwanted pregnancies. Specifically, a 10% increase in HIV incidence is associated with 0.34–1.1% fewer abortions per live births, an effect that can account for at least one-tenth of the sharp decline in abortions observed from the early 1980s to mid-1990s.     

Industrial strategy and technological change: Theory versus reality

What are the determinants of appropriate industrial strategy under different circumstances? There is no universally accepted answer. This paper deals with two new elements in the contemporary debate, which centers around the efficacy of the neoclassically-prescribed neutral policy regime. One element is research demonstrating that market forces alone are not responsible for the purported ‘market successes’ of the East Asian NICs. With Korea as the case in point, this research is reviewed to draw some lessons about successful industrial strategy. The other element is an evolving conceptualization that puts technological change at the heart of industrialization. The underlying firm-level case-study research is surveyed and implications are derived regarding the nature as well as the extent of market failures affecting industrialization. It is argued throughout that industrial strategy should be seen as a matter of managing technological change to achieve dynamically efficient industrialization.     

北京市乡镇企业技术创新调研报告

技术创新经济学起源于20世纪50年代,基于对“里昂惕夫之迷” 的合理解释而发展成为一个独立的、重要的经济学分支,其中,企业技术创新问题一直是国外经济学家研究的重点和热点问题之一。1979年,德国首先对企业技术创新状况进行调查,把理论研究转向面向企业的应用研究,其他国家如加拿大、法国、英国、西班牙、美国、意大利、芬兰、挪威、瑞典、澳大利亚等也大都在1979-1989年间开展了企业技术创新调查。     

Japan's technological strategy

While it is well established that borrowed technology has played an important role in Japan's economic development, the nature of this process needs further clarification. This paper deals with the catching-up hypothesis: that a technological gap between Japan and other industrial countries (primarily the United States) emerged during World War II, but has been narrowing since then. Making a distinction between absorptive and creative R and D, we show that Japan's technological strategy emphasized the former while allowing the gap in the latter to remain.     

Sources of technological innovation: Radical and incremental innovation problem-driven to support competitive advantage of firms

A fundamental problem in the field of management of technology is how firms develop radical and incremental innovations that sustain the competitive advantage in markets. Current frameworks provide some explanations but the general sources of major and minor technological breakthroughs are hardly known. The study here confronts this problem by developing a conceptual framework of problem-driven innovation. The inductive study of the pharmaceutical industry (focusing on ground-breaking drugs for lung cancer treatment) seems to show that the co-evolution of consequential problems and their solutions induce the emergence and development of radical innovations. In fact, firms have a strong incentive to find innovative solutions to unsolved problems in order to achieve the prospect of a (temporary) profit monopoly and competitive advantage in markets characterised by technological dynamisms. The theoretical framework of this study can be generalised to explain one of the sources of innovation that supports technological and industrial change in a Schumpeterian world of innovation-based competition.     

Business model ambidexterity and technological innovation performance: evidence from China

By applying an ambidexterity perspective to the business model context, this study examines the effects of efficiency and novelty – two conflicting business model design themes – on technological innovation performance and the relationship between these themes as it relates to enhancing technological innovation performance. From an analysis of data on 173 Chinese manufacturing firms, it is found that both efficiency and novelty themes are positively related to technological innovation performance; the combined dimension (CD) of business model ambidexterity (the interaction between efficiency and novelty themes) is positively related to technological innovation performance; and the balance dimension (BD) of business model ambidexterity (the balance between efficiency and novelty themes) positively moderates the relationship between CD and technological innovation performance.     

Collaboration and innovation: An empirical study of Indian technological enterprises

In 2010, the Indian government declared 2010–2020 to be the ‘Decade of Innovation’ and established the State Innovation Councils and Sectoral Innovation Councils to encourage and facilitate innovation by technological firms. In this paper, we study the relationship between collaboration and innovation in a cross‐section of Indian firms, paying particular attention to the impact of the innovation councils. Our results suggest that domestic collaborations have an important impact on firm innovation, as do the innovation councils, but that the impact of the councils is less for firms that collaborate.     

Process and risk analysis about enterprises technological innovation

Successful innovation is so important that enterprise scientifically manages the process and risk of technological innovation. Firstly, the process of innovation is generalized to seven stages including formation of innovation idea, investigation and evaluation, research and development, middle test, mass production, marketing and selling, after service and feedback. Secondly, the origin of risk in the process of innovation is analyzed. The purpose is to help enterprise identify risk and take countermeasure to minimize the potential loss and maximize the potential income.     

Dynamic technological learning trends in Turkish manufacturing industries

Efficient development of industries requires a broad range of technological capabilities which can be acquired only by a long process of learning. Continuous measuring and monitoring of the ever-changing technological learning would be useful for building technological capability and managing technological policies. Nevertheless, research on how to measure the technological learning over time at macro levels remains largely untouched. In this paper, by adding the experience curve into the multifactor productivity part of Neoclassical production function, we will develop a model which will allow one to estimate the technological learning levels over long periods. This model would allow a user to both estimate the past learning experiences and forecast its future path on a time varying basis. The model has been used and tested in the estimation of the annual technological learning values for 28 Turkish manufacturing industries from 1981 to 2000.