The transition from building‐up innovative technological capabilities to leadership by latecomer firms

Abstract

Summary Since the early 1980s, a group of authors have contributed to the gradual building‐up of an analytical framework to analyse the processes of technological capability accumulation by firms in developing countries and emerging economies. Later on this was also used to analyze transition economies. The analytical framework on technological capabilities building proposed by Bell and Pavitt (1995) clarifies the link between learning and accumulation, the processes involving and the role of institutional/organizational factors. It also provides insights to understand the accumulation process at the firm level. The literature based on this contribution has largely focused on analysing the learning processes involved in the gradual building of a minimum base of technological knowledge to be able to carry out innovative activities. However, it has paid limited attention to the transition process from this stage to build strategic capabilities to be able to approach the technological frontier. This paper draws on the Bell and Pavitt (1995)'s contribution to discuss the challenges that firms confront during this transition process, and a set of factors that influence firms’ at this stage: the unevenness in the knowledge bases, the profile of R&D activities and the options of technology strategies that are opened for latecomer firms, the impact of the context on the stability of the technology strategy and the knowledge creation process, and the national science, technology and innovation capabilities.