Assessing the rate of technological progress using hazard rate models of R&D communities

Abstract

AbstractThis paper describes the use of hazard rate models for assessing emerging technologies. It suggests that on a global scale the decisions of researchers, in terms of their entrance, continuance, and exit from a field, can serve as an indicator of the rate of progress in the emergence of a new technology. The approach is demonstrated using the literature on magnetic bubble memory technology as a source of data to determine the contribution‐spans of researchers. Survival and hazard functions are estimated based upon the experience of more than seventeen‐hundred researchers contributing to the field over two decades.The author is indebted to Professor Raghu Garud (New York University) and Dr. Koenraad Debackere (Gent University) for their help in developing this avenue of research, and Professors Thomas Allen and Edward Roberts (MIT) for their support and encouragement.