Entering the World of Nanotechnology: Three Different Perspectives.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to build a holistic theoretical framework of factors that influence, positively or negatively, companies to enter the nanotechnology industry, with a particular focus on France. Since the beginning of the 21st century governments have invested heavily in nanotechnology research and development (R&D). The understanding and control of matter at such a small scale will impact nearly every industry sector and profoundly change production mechanisms and products of all sorts. After having invested heavily in R&D, governments now turn to new challenges, namely creating a positive environment or infrastructure that allows national companies to venture into this new technology to find new fields of application. Bozeman et al. (2008, p. 750) underline, that the extent and the speed of commercialisation “depend in large part on the extent to which barriers to companies’ adoption and integration of nanotechnology can be identified and then lessened”. The identification of these barriers is thus particularly important for governments in order to win the global nanotechnology race and to support economic growth. Our methodology is based on a systematic literature review on nanotechnology, focusing particularly on three literature streams: the “green” view (e.g. sustainability, eco-design), the entrepreneurship view and the French view. We use the systematic literature review methodology (Tranfield et al., 2003) and thus explain explicitly how we searched for the relevant articles and on which articles we base our conclusions. Our findings show that the three investigated literature streams on nanotechnology (“Green” literature, Entrepreneurship literature and French literature) have some similarities but also several differences. All three literature streams underline the importance of knowledge sharing across boundaries, access to university scientists and facilities, and government intervention in order to accelerate the diffusion of nanotechnology. However, the main differences between the three views is that the “green” view is the only one that puts a lot of emphasis on integrating civil society, the entrepreneurship view particularly underlines the importance of venture capital, and the French view particularly concentrates on the role of clusters. All three views are thus very complementary and important to take into consideration in order to overcome barriers of nanotechnology diffusion.