The means of managing momentum: Bridging technological paths and organisational fields

This paper examines how technological and organisational changes are mediated through different means of mutually monitoring and collectively coordinating technological developments in the field of semiconductor manufacturing. As collective practices, both monitoring and coordinating aim at generating momentum in order to stabilise or redirect technological paths in organisational fields. The empirical analysis of innovation practices in the field of semiconductor manufacturing technology shows that the means of managing momentum, above all roadmaps, conferences, and R&D consortia, influence and transform the development of new technologies as well as the social relations within the organisational field. The transformative capacity of these means is elaborated conceptually using Giddens’ theory of structuration.     

National institutions, public-private knowledge flows, and innovation performance: A comparative study of the biotechnology industry in the US and France

The biotechnology industry is a striking example of the disconnect between the location of knowledge creation and its commercial development. I argue that national technological performance in biotechnology is critically affected by institutions governing scientific careers, which shape the professional identities and boundary-spanning activities of research scientists. I test this in a comparison of the United States and France. Drawing on fieldwork and analysis of patent data, I compare institutional frameworks and estimate models of forward patent citations. The models show that entrepreneurial firms are associated with high-performing innovations in this sector whereas large established firms perform poorly in both countries, and highlight the importance of institutions in creating country-specific combinations of human capital with organizational capabilities.     

The skill bias effect of technological and organisational change: Evidence and policy implications

Previous studies have suggested that technological change is the main cause of the recent increase in demand for highly skilled workers in developed countries. However, a more recent strand of literature has also introduced the “Skill Biased Organisational Change” hypothesis, according to which the increasing diffusion of new organisational practices within firms plays a role in the increasing demand for skilled workers. We estimate a SUR model for a sample of 400 Italian manufacturing firms, showing that upskilling is more a function of reorganisational strategy than a consequence of technological change alone. Moreover, some evidence of superadditive effects emerges, which is consistent with the notion that technology and organisation jointly affect the demand for labour.     

The dynamics of technological change in UK retail banking services: An evolutionary perspective

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate an evolutionary perspective on the process of structural change that has characterized the banking industry in the United Kingdom (UK). For this purpose, the evolution of retail financial services is contrasted against the backdrop of the implementation and development of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The paper delves into the sources and the effects of technological change in banking over a long-term perspective (1840s-1990s) to point out the significance of the opportunities and the constraints that have shaped the growth and development of this industry. This is interpreted as a three-stage evolutionary process driven by intertemporal coordination across several complementary domains, including activities of production, business organization, consumption and the underlying regulatory setting. It is concluded that the evolution of UK retail banking displays the characteristics of a distributed process of innovation in which developers of technologies, service suppliers and customers contribute to the process of structural change of the industry.     

Demand-pull,technology-push,and the direction of technological change

This paper studies the impact of Demand-pull (DP) and Technology-push (TP) on growth, innovation, and the factor bias of technological change in a two-layer network of input–output (market) and patent citation (innovation) links among 307 6-digit US manufacturing industries in 1977–2012. Two types of TP and DP are distinguished: (1) DP and TP are between-layer spillovers when market demand shocks pull innovation and innovation pushes market growth. (2) Within-layer DP arises if downstream users trigger upstream innovation and growth, while TP effects spill over from up- to downstream industries. The results support between- and within-layer TP: Innovation spillovers from upstream industries drive market growth and innovation. Within the market, upstream supply shocks stimulate growth, but this effect differs across industries. DP is not supported but shows a factor bias favoring labor, while TP comes with a shift towards non-production work. The results are strongest after the 2000s and shed light on the drivers of recent technological change and its factor bias.     

Analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems: A scheme of analysis

Various researchers and policy analysts have made empirical studies of innovation systems in order to understand their current structure and trace their dynamics. However, policy makers often experience difficulties in extracting practical guidelines from studies of this kind. In this paper, we operationalize our previous work on a functional approach to analyzing innovation system dynamics into a practical scheme of analysis for policy makers. The scheme is based on previous literature and our own experience in developing and applying functional thinking. It can be used by policy makers not only to identify the key policy issues but also to set policy goals.     

Mapping technological trajectories of the Green Revolution and the Gene Revolution from modernization to globalization

The dynamics of technology development along the technological trajectories of the Green Revolution and the Gene Revolution could be explicated by the social morphologies of modernization and globalization. The Green Revolution was shaped by the exigencies of modernization, while the Gene Revolution is being shaped by the imperatives of neo-liberal economic globalization. Innovation, development, and diffusion of technologies followed different trajectories in these two realms because of being part of different innovation systems. Considerations of private gain and profit in the form of high returns to shareholders of agro-biotech corporations of global reach, largely, determine the dynamics of technological innovation in the Gene Revolution. Technology transfer and local adaptive work in the Green Revolution was carried out in the international public domain with the objective of developing research capacity in post-colonial Third World agriculture to increase food production to avert hunger-led political insurrection during the Cold War. Differentiating these two trajectories is important not only due to the normative implications inherent in comparing the impacts of these two “revolutions”, but also due to the important lessons we learn about how different contexts of innovation in the same technology cluster could evolve into contrasting research policy regimes.     

The nanotech versus the biotech revolution: Sources of productivity in incumbent firm research

Does the adaptation of incumbent firms to new methods of inventing follow similar patterns across industries and inventions? We investigate this question in the context of the revolutionary scientific advances enabling biotechnology and nanotechnology, both of which represent inventions of methods of inventing for incumbent firms. We hypothesize that an incumbent firm's ability to exploit these new methods of invention depends initially on access to tacit knowledge on how to employ the new methods. Over time, however, as firms learn and/or the knowledge becomes codified in routine procedures or commercially available equipment, inventive output is more highly dependent on traditional R&D investments. We empirically test these hypotheses on two longitudinal samples over the 21-year time period between 1980 and 2000: 80 incumbent pharmaceutical firms generating 15,607 biotechnology patents, and 249 firms across a diverse set of industries that were granted a total of 3236 nanotechnology patents. We find broad support for our conjectures.     

Technological innovations and sectoral change: Transformative capacity, adaptability, patterns of change: An analytical framework

Following up on recent debates about sectoral systems of innovation and production, the paper introduces a heuristic framework for analyzing and explaining distinct patterns of technology-based sectoral change. The concept is based on two interrelated influencing factors. The first is the sectoral-specific transformative capacity of new technologies themselves, that is, their substantial or incremental impact on socioeconomic and institutional change in a given sectoral system. The second is the sectoral adaptability of socioeconomic structures, institutions, and actors confronted with the opportunities presented by new technologies. The first factor—the sectoral transformative capacity of new technologies—enables us to identify the technology-based pressure to change and adjust the structural, institutional, and organizational architectures of the sectoral system. The second, complementary factor—sectoral adaptability—helps us to discern the distinct social patterns of anticipating and adopting this technology-based pressure. The specific interplay between the two influencing factors creates distinguishable modes of sectoral transformation, ranging from anticipative and smooth adjustments to reactive and crisis-ridden patterns of change. Even processes of radical sectoral change continue over longer periods of mismatch and are characterized by numerous and mostly gradual organizational, structural and institutional transformations.     

后危机时代英国政府的科技与创新政策

科学技术与创新对英国经济的贡献率很高。分析了后危机时代英国政府科技创新政策的核心内容,英国政府强调创新环境的营造,重视对创新基本要素的投入,对企业创新给予大力支持,这些有望为英国经济发展注入不竭的动力。还分析了英国政府确立的对经济社会发展具有重要意义的重点科技领域。     

产业创新系统模型的构建与分析

产业创新系统研究是继技术创新理论和国家创新系统理论之后创新管理领域兴起的新兴前沿领域。本文在综合研究国内外产业创新管理优秀成果的基础上,构建了产业创新系统模型,对其结构、功能和运行机制进行了分析。     

An audit of technological innovation capabilities in chinese firms: some empirical findings in Beijing, China

Recent studies have advocated different technological innovation capabilities (TICs) and discussed their impact on a firm’s competitive performance. This paper introduces a study framework of innovation audit and examines the relevance of seven TICs to building and sustaining the competitiveness of Chinese firms. Empirical data was acquired through a recent study of 213 Chinese firms in Beijing, China. Regression analysis was employed to examine the correlation between TICs and innovation rate, sales growth, and product competitiveness among these firms. The findings verify that R&D and resources allocation capabilities are the two most important TICs. A strong R&D capability could safeguard innovation rate and product competitiveness in large and medium-sized firms, whereas a resources allocation capability would enhance the sales growth in small firms. However, the impact of learning and organising capabilities on a firm’s innovation performance has yet to be investigated.The findings of this paper suggest that Chinese firms should consider a more balanced focus on their TICs’ harmonising enhancement. In order to maintain their sustainable development, effectively plan and implement their innovation strategies as well as enhance their whole innovation capability, Chinese firms should closely relate their TICs to the formulation of technology strategy and harmonisation of innovation and R&D activities.     

Science,technology and innovation policies in small and developing economies: The case of Central America

In the last decade, there has been an increasing recognition among Central American policy makers of the central importance of science, technology and innovation (STI) for inclusive and sustainable economic growth, based on higher productivity. This paper aims to study current STI policies in those countries and explore whether this increasing acknowledgement has come along with new and more active policies. Empirical evidence collected through questionnaire-based interviews with high-level government officials in each country shows that Central American governments have built public organisations and institutions to support STI, such as laws, national plans and a wide variety of policy instruments. Yet available science and technology indicators illustrate that the results are still meagre. This paper identifies eight barriers faced by these governments when designing and implementing STI policies.     

Classification of Industries by Level of Technology: An Appraisal and some Implications

Modern growth theory acknowledges that a country's economic prosperity depends in large part on its capacity for technological innovation. Empirical evidence, however, supports the view that not all sectors are equally innovative. As a result, it seems desirable from a public policy perspective to identify and promote sectors displaying both a high innovation rate and, in an increasingly competitive international economy, a high degree of international competitiveness. It is frequently argued that the high-tech industry sectors, in contrast to low-tech sectors, satisfy both conditions, with the clear implication that public policy should be directed to enhancing the performance of high-tech sectors. This approach raises at least two important issues. The first is whether such classifications can be meaningfully constructed given both the intractability of the concepts involved and the difficulties in data collection. A second issue is the basic assumption that policy emphasis should be placed on technology-intensive industries because they have a greater impact on growth. In this paper, we argue that while it may be possible to construct indices of technological intensity that are useful for some purposes, the ones that are currently proposed do not, in fact, address questions of economic growth and firm performance very well. In part, this is a reflection of the technicalities involved in formulating and operationalising the indices, but it also reflects problems in the underlying premise, namely technology-intensive sectors are more growth-inducing than low-tech sectors. We call, therefore, for the adoption of a more sophisticated and detailed approach that would provide a sensible classification of industries and new policy insights.     

Innovation as co-evolution of scientific and technological networks: exploring tissue engineering

The question of exactly how science is commercialized is an important one. While the social structures of “science” and “technology” are distinctive, recent work suggests that scientific and technological ideas in fact co-evolve. This paper addresses the dynamics of such co-evolution: are scientific networks deeply co-mingled with networks through which technology is created and if so how? It does so in a study of an emerging area of biomedicine—tissue engineering. The research is based on a novel methodology that takes advantage of the fact that an idea is often inscribed in both a patent and paper, thus forming a patent–paper pair. Starting with the pair, it is possible to trace the citation network of patents, papers, inventors and authors, combining traditional bibliometric analysis with in-depth interviews to provide new insights. The results show that for this case there exist distinctive scientific and technological networks. Furthermore, while there is evidence of overlap, it is neither co-publishing nor citation as might be predicted from current literature. Rather co-mingling exists through founding, licensing, consulting and advising. This has implications for our understanding of the processes through which spillovers arise, the way in which commercialization and technology transfer should be structured and for recent debates on conflict of interest in biomedicine.     

环境保护项目的政策性融资方式与创新

政策性融资机构是指资金运用服务于国家政策的融资机构。中国环境保护活动的蓬勃发展,与政策性融资机构的支持是分不开的。理论分析与实践表明,政策性融资机构在经营中适当增加追求利润的内容,反而会增加社会的整体福利。政策性融资方式支持中国环境保护领域必须进行创新,比如组建专门的财政型政策性融资机构和推动国家开发银行的经营机制创新、组织创新、制度创新等。     

Innovation in times of crisis: National Systems of Innovation, structure, and demand

This article addresses the impact of the current economic downturn on innovation across Europe. Using micro- and macro-data, we investigate to what extent some structural characteristics of National Systems of Innovation, along with demand, affect firms’ persistency in terms of innovation investment. It emerges that the effects of the economic downturn in terms of firms’ innovation investment are not the same across European countries. The competences and quality of the human resources, the specialization in the high-technology sector, together with the development of the financial system seem to be the structural factors which are able to offset the effect of the economic downturn on innovation investments of firms across Europe. Finally, some considerations about policies during recessions are discussed.     

The reconfiguration of National Innovation Systems—the example of German biotechnology

The concept of the National System of Innovation (NSI) has been applied in order to analyze the interrelation of institutions and technological development. It has been diversified as a growing number of studies recognized the emergence of autonomous innovation systems at various territorial levels. Focusing on German biotechnology, this article takes an alternative perspective arguing that functions of the NSI became part of a multi-level governance system. By proposing a multi-level approach, which directs on the dynamic reconfiguration of NSIs towards the subnational as well as the international level, we are trying to bridge the gap between innovation system approaches that analytically highlight one specific territorial level only.     

政府资助对技术创新的作用：理论分析与政策工具选择

这篇论文主要阐述了政府资助对私人部门技术创新的影响。政府对私人部门进行资助的政策工具主要有政府担保、贴息、贷款，税收刺激和公共研究，这些政策工具除了能促进私人部门的技术创新活动外，也有相互之间的牵制、替代和补充作用。政府资助的效果随总量增加而增加，达到某一极值后就会下降，论文的结论对于政府制订促进私人部门技术创新的资助政策有着一定的参考价值。