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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010070316 | HD2756 F34 2003 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Drawing upon evolutionary economics and resource-based approaches, the author utilises US patent data from 1930-1990 to examine the persistence of corporate technological competencies and their gradual erosion through diversifying incremental change. The book explores the changing nature of this diversification with respect to firm size, technological relatedness and technological complexity in 32 firms distributed across four broadly defined industrial sectors.
The findings suggest that industry and corporate technological profiles remain strong but are becoming blurred by the pervasiveness of general-purpose technologies. Although historically, diversification is associated with an increase in firm size, the author argues that in recent times it results from technological relatedness and complexity.
This book will appeal to industrial and business economists, historians of business and technology, and students and scholars of technology management.
Author Notes
Felicia M. Fai is a Lecturer in International Business in the School of Management at the University of Bath, UK
Table of Contents
| List of figures | p. vii |
| List of tables | p. ix |
| Acknowledgements | p. xi |
| 1 Introduction | p. 1 |
| 1.1 Background | p. 2 |
| 1.2 Evolutionary influences | p. 3 |
| 1.3 Resource-based theory and complementary aspects | p. 6 |
| 1.4 Diversification | p. 8 |
| 1.5 The firm as a principal source of innovation and growth | p. 10 |
| 1.6 Technological diversification | p. 15 |
| 1.7 Technological diversification--implications for the firm | p. 18 |
| 1.8 Relationships between product diversification and technological diversification | p. 20 |
| 1.9 Structure of the book | p. 27 |
| 2 The data | p. 29 |
| 2.1 Introduction | p. 29 |
| 2.2 The indicators of technological innovation and the validity of patents | p. 29 |
| 2.3 The validity of patents to the evolutionary approach and the resource-based/competence-based theory of the firm | p. 34 |
| 2.4 US patent data | p. 35 |
| 2.5 The Reading University database | p. 36 |
| 2.6 The research-specific dataset | p. 40 |
| 2.7 Summary | p. 42 |
| 3 Industry-specific competencies and industrial convergence | p. 46 |
| 3.1 Introduction | p. 46 |
| 3.2 Methodology | p. 52 |
| 3.3 Industry-specific competencies and path-dependency | p. 53 |
| 3.4 Inter-industry technological convergence | p. 54 |
| 3.5 Identifying emerging technological paradigms and fields of convergence | p. 56 |
| 3.6 Summary and conclusions | p. 63 |
| 4 Technological persistence in the evolution of corporate technological competence | p. 66 |
| 4.1 Introduction | p. 66 |
| 4.2 The persistent characteristics of innovation within firms, but variety between firms | p. 66 |
| 4.3 Methodology | p. 69 |
| 4.4 Measurement indicators | p. 70 |
| 4.5 Results of tests for persistence in profiles of corporate technological specialization | p. 72 |
| 4.6 Summary and conclusions | p. 86 |
| 5 Technological diversification | p. 88 |
| 5.1 Introduction | p. 88 |
| 5.2 The existence of diversified firms | p. 88 |
| 5.3 Why do firms diversify? | p. 89 |
| 5.4 The concept and measurement of diversification | p. 91 |
| 5.5 The prevalence of diversification across firms | p. 93 |
| 5.6 Conclusions | p. 106 |
| 6 Scale and scope in technology: influences on diversification | p. 109 |
| 6.1 Introduction | p. 109 |
| 6.2 Historical background | p. 112 |
| 6.3 Methodology | p. 115 |
| 6.4 Results | p. 120 |
| 6.5 Conclusions | p. 128 |
| 7 Technological inter-relatedness and complex diversification | p. 131 |
| 7.1 Introduction | p. 131 |
| 7.2 The balance of technological breadth and depth over time | p. 134 |
| 7.3 Combining scale-induced, drift-other effects and breadth-depth issues | p. 141 |
| 7.4 Summary and conclusions | p. 149 |
| 8 Conclusions | p. 152 |
| 8.1 Introduction | p. 152 |
| 8.2 Summary of findings | p. 152 |
| 8.3 Implications | p. 155 |
| 8.4 Final thoughts | p. 160 |
| Appendices | p. 162 |
| Bibliography | p. 176 |
| Index | p. 189 |
