Do ‘liberal market economies’ really innovate more radically than ‘coordinated market economies’?: Hall and Soskice reconsidered

In Varieties of Capitalism; The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Peter A. Hall and David Soskice (H&S) argue that technological specialization patterns are largely determined by the prevailing “variety of capitalism”. They hypothesize that “liberal market economies” (LMEs) specialize in radical innovation, while “coordinated market economies” (CMEs) focus more on incremental innovation. Mark Zachary Taylor [Taylor, M.Z., 2004. Empirical evidence against varieties of capitalism's theory of technological innovation. International Organization 58, 601-631.] convincingly argued that Hall and Soskice's empirical test is fundamentally flawed and proposed a more appropriate test of their conjecture. He rejected the varieties of capitalism explanation of innovation patterns. We extend and refine Taylor's analysis, using a broader set of radicality indicators and making industry-level comparisons. Our results indicate that Hall and Soskice's conjecture cannot be upheld as a general rule, but that it survives closer scrutiny for a substantial number of industries and an important dimension of radicality.     

The integration of old and new technological paradigms in low- and medium-tech sectors: The case of mechatronics

This article addresses the internal transformation of low- and medium-tech (LMT) sectors from a technological perspective, analysing the absorption of radical new technologies by low- and medium-technology (LMT) firms and their integration into frameworks dominated by older technologies. Through an empirical analysis of a cluster of mechatronic companies, the paper highlights some of the main features of the integration process and provides a preliminary assessment of whether the phenomenon is more likely to occur within or between companies, that is through the absorption of new technologies by each firm individually or by means of linkages between specialised mono-technology companies.     

Why are some independent inventors ‘heroes’ and others ‘hobbyists’? The moderating role of technological diversity and specialization

Despite a substantial body of research investigating the market significance of inventions by independent inventors, relatively little attention has been devoted to understanding their technological significance. A recent study conducted by [Dahlin, K., Taylor, M., Fichman, M., 2004. Today's Edisons or weekend hobbyists: technical impact and success of inventions by independent inventors. Res. Policy 33, 1167-1183] on the tennis racket industry shows that independent inventors are a heterogeneous group which includes both “heroes” who contribute substantially to technological progress and “hobbyists” who make only a marginal contribution. What is not asked - and therefore not explained - is why this distinction arises. In this paper, we focus on the type of prior technological knowledge (in terms of technological specialization and diversity) applied by independent inventors and their corporate counterparts as a factor explaining differences in technological impact. Our empirical setting is the field of medical equipment technology. We find that independent inventors are more sensitive to the negative effects of technological diversity than their corporate counterparts. Furthermore, our study reveals that technological specialization pays off more for independent inventors than for their corporate counterparts. Therefore, those independent inventors who apply low degrees of diversity and high degrees of specialization are capable of reaching the same level as or even outperforming their corporate counterparts, thus becoming “heroes”. Based on our findings, we discuss implications for research and corporate practice.     

超厚涂层水基锆英粉涂料在大型铸钢件中的应用

通过合理的涂料西方研制出具有较好工艺性能的超厚涂层水基锆砂粉涂料,用于大型铸钢件生产取得了较好的经济效益和环保效果。     

The power of integrality: Linkages between product architecture, innovation, and industry structure

A substantial literature stream suggests that many products are becoming more modular over time, and that this development is often associated with a change in industry structure towards higher degrees of specialization. These developments can have strong implications for an industry's competition as the history of the PC industry illustrates. To add to our understanding of the linkages between product architecture, innovation, and industry structure we develop detailed product architecture measurements based on a previously proposed method [Fixson, S.K., 2005. Product architecture assessment: a tool to link product, process, and supply chain design decisions. Journal of Operations Management 23 (3/4), 345-369] and study an unusual case in which a firm - through decreasing its product modularity - turned its formerly competitive industry into a near-monopoly. Using this case study we explore how existing theories on modularity explain the observed phenomenon, and show that most consider technological change in rather long-term dimensions, and tend to focus on efficiency-related arguments to explain the resulting forces on competition. We add three critical aspects to the theory that connects technological change and industry dynamics. First, we suggest integrating as a new design operator to explain product architecture genesis. Second, we argue that a finer-grained analysis of the product architecture shows the existence of multiple linkages between product architecture and industry structure, and that these different linkages help explain the observed intra-industry heterogeneity across firms. Third, we propose that the firm boundary choice can also be a pre-condition of the origin of architectural innovation, not only an outcome of efficiency considerations.     

The effect of external and internal factors on firms’ product innovation

In this article we analyse the effect of factors external and internal to the firm, on product innovation novelty, and how this effect varies by industry. We estimate three econometric models to determine the individual effects of these factors, their joint explanatory power and the effects of interactions among them. The analysis is based on a sample of 6094 manufacturing firms, taken from the Spanish Survey of Technological Innovation 2000. The results indicate that the firm's technological competences, derived from in-house R&D, are the main determinant of product innovation. They also suggest that in the presence of high levels of such competences, the technological opportunities deriving from non-industry agents become less important as determinants of innovation. We show that the determinants of innovation vary depending on the industrial sector and the degree of novelty of the product developed.     

Academic capabilities in developing countries—A conceptual framework with empirical illustrations from Thailand

The role of universities in the technological upgrading of developing countries is attracting more and more interest from both the academic community and policy makers. This paper is proposing a new framework to understand this role by introducing the concept of academic capabilities. Its application is illustrated based on the case of Thailand. It is shown that the concept of academic capabilities allows interpreting higher education data and information in an innovative way. It can be applied to relate the multiple facets of universities (e.g. research, teaching, technology transfer, management) to the overall process of technological change and development.     

中国风电和碳捕集技术发展路径与减排成本研究——基于技术学习曲线的分析

煤炭是我国能源的主体,煤电也是我国电力的主要构成。我国未来低碳发展将主要取决于低碳电力技术的选择及其推广,其中风电与碳捕集与碳封存(CCS)技术发展十分迅速但都处于发展初期,其未来不确定性较大。本文将基于风电和碳捕集的技术学习曲线,探讨这两类技术未来发展的主要问题,包括(实现市场竞争所需的)推广时间、减排潜力和减排成本等,以期为政策制定者提供参考。研究发现：在减排量与发展路径相同的前提下,风电技术成本较新建煤粉(PC)电厂碳捕集技术成本略高,后者若考虑了碳运输与碳封存成本在内,其减排成本将更高;另外,考虑了技术学习效应后,风电技术与CCS技术成本较相关研究结果都更低。到2025年风电技术发展将面临电网基础设施的瓶颈,在当前技术条件下将很难取得突破;碳捕集技术减排潜力更大,其新增投资主要表现在燃料成本与新增资本投资部分,当前主要工作应加快发展碳捕集示范项目、强化国际学习与合作,降低其不确定性,在2025年实现CCS与风电技术的对接。     

专利技术相关性研究方法进展评述与展望

[目的/意义] 专利技术相关性研究对专利分析、专利管理等意义重大。综述专利技术相关性研究的典型方法,并进行客观分析和评价,以期为进一步研究提供新的思路。[方法/过程] 在界定专利技术相关性概念的基础上,对专利技术相似性和专利技术互补性的研究方法进行调研、归纳与分析,评述该领域的研究现状,提出未来可能的研究方向。[结果/结论] 专利技术相似性的研究方法可分为基于专利分类、专利引证和文本挖掘3种,且各自有其优势和局限;当前专利技术互补性研究比较薄弱,研究方法有待丰富;专利技术相似性和互补性的协同研究不足;专利技术相关性的应用范围有待进一步扩展。