Technological convergence through industrial research collaboration: A comparative analysis between the U.S. and Korea1)

Abstract

Summary For the past several decades, industrial firms have increasingly collaborated for research and development. Besides all other benefits, industrial research collaboration significantly contributes to technological convergence, which is one of the major sources of contemporary innovations. Not all technological convergences, however, are the same. Some technologies converge more often than others, while other technologies rarely but newly converge as like entrepreneurs take new trials. This paper tries to measure the ‘entrepreneurship’ of technological convergence formed through industrial research collaboration by utilizing a methodology borrowed from Teece, et al. (1994). This methodology, initially developed to measure ‘business diversification,’ is applied to two sets of industrial research collaboration data‐research joint ventures formed in the U.S. and cooperative research projects carried out in Korea. This empirical analysis shows that technological convergences through industrial research collaboration in both countries are not random but strategic behavior. However, the technological convergences formed through research joint ventures in the U.S. are more strategic and entrepreneurial than those in Korea. These results imply that public policies should explicitly take into account industrial research collaboration as an effective facilitator of technological convergence and also that the bigger and more diverse industrial research collaborations under an autonomous environment might result in more strategic and entrepreneurial technological convergences.