| Abstract: | The article deals with the diffusion of two major innovations in the world's steel industry, the oxygen steel process and continuous casting. Twenty-one countries, including the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, are analyzed from the point of view of their ability to adopt technology from pioneering countries. Among capitalist countries, Great Britain and the United States appear to be slower than others. Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union as a group show a lower ability to adopt technologies than capitalist countries, even the slowest ones. G. Ray's hypothesis that countries that are late-comers in adopting a particular technology benefit from that and are faster in spreading it over their industry is challenged. The correlation analysis shows that at least in one case, the oxygen steel process, the late-comers are not faster in diffusion than countries that were first in introducing new technology. It is concluded from empirical findings that late-comers may not be faster in diffusion if there is a lack of good communication (the Eastern European countries case) or when the technology in question is relatively simple and benefits from being late are insignificant (the case of oxygen steel process). |
