Industry-specific competencies and converging technological systems: evidence from patents

Utilising patent data, this empirical paper draws upon the notion of technological path-dependence at the industry level and finds that industry-specific competencies have endured strongly over the twentieth century — industrial sectors patent most in their corresponding technological fields, and differences in overall technological profiles remain quite marked. However, in an increasingly complex technological environment, paradigms developed within one industry may spill over into others as firms seek to absorb them. Eventually, after long periods of time the spillovers may become large as firms go beyond the development of new applications of their core technologies into the absorption of new modes of technological behaviour originally developed elsewhere. Technological profiles therefore show a pattern of ‘convergence’ under such conditions. Firms unable to attain this second stage of spillover may become ‘industrial dinosaurs’.