Regimes reloaded! A reappraisal of Schumpeterian patterns of innovation, 1977\u20132011

Roberto Fontana,Alessandro Nuvolari,Arianna Martinelli

doi:10.1007/s00191-021-00735-6

Abstract

One of the most significant results of the empirical literature on innovation studies of the 1980s and 1990s was that innovation patterns were characterized by important inter-sectoral differences. This finding prompted a lively research agenda that: i) provided empirical characterizations of sectoral patterns of innovation by means of taxonomic exercises; ii) sought to interpret sectoral patterns of innovation as emerging properties of underlying selection and learning processes reflecting the structural properties of technical change at sectoral level (“technological regimes”). In this paper, we reconsider one of the landmark works on technological regimes (e.g., Breschi et al. 2000), reassess its findings, and perform a quasi-replication of their its exercise. Our conclusion is that the proposed distinction between Schumpeterian patterns of innovation (Mark I vs. Mark II) and their interpretation in terms of technological regimes has still the promise of yielding important insights concerning on the connection between inventive activities and industrial dynamics.

Highlights

During the 1980s and 1990s a tremendous effort in the field of innovation studies has been devoted to the empirical characterization of sectoral patterns of innovation
Malerba and Orsenigo’s reappraisal of the Schumpeter Mark I and II regime dichotomy has appeared in a series of papers published between 1995 and 2000 in which they provided a systematic examination of the sectoral patterns of innovation in a set of advanced capitalist countries using patent data
The dimensions considered in the assessment of the patterns of innovation were: i) concentration and asymmetries among innovating firms in each sector; ii) size of the innovating firms; iii) changes over time in the hierarchy of innovators; iv) relevance of the entry of new innovators

Summary

Introduction

During the 1980s and 1990s a tremendous effort in the field of innovation studies has been devoted to the empirical characterization of sectoral patterns of innovation This approach was prompted by the increasing availability of data on inventive activities (patents, research and development investment, etc.) at both sectoral and firm level which were suggesting that innovative activities display a wide degree of variety across industries along several dimensions, such as the knowledge base underlying innovation processes, the type of actors and institutions involved in innovative activities, the characteristics and the economic effects of innovations (Malerba 2005). Technology classes with high concentration and asymmetries among innovating firms were characterized by relatively large size of innovators, a relative stability in the hierarchy of innovators, and limited entry, pointing towards a Schumpeter Mark II pattern These results were further corroborated by a principal component analysis on the variables mentioned above. The overall conclusion of these investigations was the recognition of systematic differences across industries in the patterns of innovation (differences that it is possible to characterize in terms of the Schumpeter Mark I and Schumpeter Mark II regime dichotomy) and of similarities across

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion