Evolution Of Technological Capabilities Research Articles

Technological Capabilities Index for Agrifood Organizations In Colombia

Purpose: to propose an instrument for measuring technological capabilities (TC) in organizations of the agri-food sector and to apply it in two associations in Cundinamarca, Colombia. Theoretical framework: TC, understood as the organization's abilities to implement and take advantage of technologies, allows agricultural organizations to achieve competitive advantages, but they must be strengthened in this sector. Methods: Based on the Agricultural Innovation Survey and the Manual of Bogota, a technological capabilities index (TCI) was designed with four factors: R&D, production process, environmental management, and digitalization. It was applied to two producer organizations at two points in time: 2019 and 2020, after the intervention of the ANDI Foundation (linked to the National Association of Industrialists of Colombia) through the HUB methodology of alliances for inclusive competitiveness. Results and conclusion: the ICT has a comprehensive approach that allows evaluating the evolution of TC in organizations of the agri-food sector. The intervention carried out through the HUB methodology contributed moderately to the strengthening of TC. Research implications: ICT can contribute to decision-making in organizations of the Colombian agricultural sector. Opportunities for improvement of the HUB methodology were identified, as well as the key role of guilds such as ANDI. Originality/value: the ICT proposed in this research is useful for Colombian agrifood organizations and has options for extrapolation to other types of companies and sectors in the country. The role of the HUB methodology in TC was evaluated, which has no precedent in the available literature.

Ubiquitous digital technologies and spatial structure; an update.

This paper examines the impact of widespread adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) on urban structure worldwide. Has it offset agglomeration benefits and led to more dispersed spatial structures, or has it strengthened urban externalities and thus resulted in more concentrated spatial structures? Theoretical and empirical studies on this question have produced contradictory findings. The present study recognizes that assumptions made earlier about the evolution of technological capabilities do not necessarily hold today. As cutting-edge digital technologies have matured considerably, a fresh look at this question is called for. The paper addresses this issue by means of several data sets using instrumental variable methods. One is the UN data on Urban Settlements with more than 300, 000 inhabitants. Estimation methods with these data show that increased adoption of ICT has resulted in national urban systems that are less uniform in terms of city sizes and are characterized by higher population concentrations in larger cities, when concentration is proxied the Pareto (Zipf) coefficient for national city size distributions. Two, is disaggregated data for the urban systems of the US, defined as Micropolitan and Metropolitan Areas, and for the UK, defined as Built-up Areas in England and Wales, respectively. These data allow for the impacts to be studied for cities smaller than those included in the cross-country data. Increased internet usage improved a city’s ranking in the US urban system. Similarly, increased download speed improves a built-up area’s ranking in England and Wales.

A study on technological capability among product-based telecom start-ups in India: role of technological learning and bricolage

The present work explores accumulation of technological capabilities among telecom start-ups in India engaged in the development of innovative new products. This paper weaves together literature on RBV, innovation, bricolage, technological learning and technological capability to further our understanding of technological capability among the start-ups, in a high-tech and knowledge intensive setting. Drawing on rich data collected from multiple case studies, we conceptualise differing degree of innovation (creation, modification and extension) as possible manifestation of varying levels of technological capability. Our work proposes a process model for the evolution of technological capability as a result of complex interplay between existing knowledge, two complementary stages of bricolage, and new knowledge acquisition through differing modes of technological learning. The paper further identifies explorative learning, gap focused learning and market focused learning as the three dominant learning mechanisms and also highlights differences in capabilities among the start-ups and established firms.

Citation Overlap Proximity within the Triad: Evidence from Us and European Patent Citations

The aim of this paper is to investigate the correlation between the technological proximity measure based on patent citations in three economic areas: USA, Japan and the Europe. In each economic area, we use information from two international patent systems to construct the technological proximity for 240 international firms. In particular, we derive firms’ patent citations from United States Patent and Trademarks Office data and European Patent Office data. In order to compute the technological proximity, we follow the methodology developed by Mowery, Oxley, Silverman (1996, “Strategic alliances and inter-firm knowledge transfer,” Strategic Management Journal 17 (Winter special issue): 77-91) and Stuart, Podolny (1996, “Local search and the evolution of technological capabilities,” Strategic Management Journal 17 (Summer special issue): 21-38) which have introduced the citation overlap measure, an alternative way of evaluating proximity between firms. This index asks how many of the patents that one firm cites are also cited by another firm. It is worth noticing the asymmetric nature of this index, which makes it a convincing instrument to consider the knowledge flows between firms. The contribution to the existing literature is to analyse the robustness of the citation overlap proximity measure and the extent to which it can be influenced by patent systems.

Internationalization Process and Technological Capability Trajectory of Iguaçu

This article focuses on the influence of the internationalization process in the evolution of technological capability. This implication was studied in Iguacu between 1967 and 2009. To achieve the proposed goal it was used the Internationalization of Brazilian Export Producer Companies Model, built by Kraus (2006) and the Model of Technological Capabilities in Companies of Emerging Economies, built by Figueiredo (2004). The study found that different stages of internationalization require different functions and different levels of technology. The discussion proposed by this paper found a close association between the process of internationalization and the development of technological capability in the company studied. It can be concluded that for companies of Soluble Coffee to conquer, reach and remain competitive in international markets it should engage efforts to build diverse organizational skills, alliances and technological capabilities.

From information technology to bioinformatics: Evolution of technological capabilities in India

This paper explores a trend in the development of innovation in emerging economies: exaptive technological capabilities. A growing proportion of innovation is originating in emerging economies that, being resource-constrained in a dynamic and uncertain environment, requires leveraging existing capabilities and recombining with new knowledge resources. An evolutionary biology model is applied to a process model whereby initial technological capabilities are renewed by the firm given an external selection event. Using a detailed case study across 6years, this paper investigates the exaptation process of Information Technology (IT) capabilities into bioinformatics by an Indian IT firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Findings suggest that just leveraging existing technological capabilities alone is a model set for failure. Such a tactic ignores the environment of the new technology application area. By investing in the needed complementary resources, TCS corrected its initial path to open source their software and offer consulting services on how to utilize the software and, thus, create intellectual property. These insights are valuable not only for the innovation management of traditional IT services to life sciences, but more broadly for firms in emerging economies that hope to renew and build exaptive technological capabilities to enter unforeseen new application areas by leveraging existing technological capabilities.

Evolution of Technological Capabilities: A Study on Indian Product Based Telecom Start-Up Firms

New technology based start-ups play a very important role in developing the economy of a country. However, product based B2B start-ups in India are rare and existing ones have to undergo several challenges in commercializing. Present study explores the evolution of technological capabilities that enable commercialization among such early stage start-ups by adopting a multiple case based (four independent start-ups) inductive methodology with Indian telecom start-ups as the context. We have identified architectural design, algorithmic implementation and product adaptation as components of technological capability of such start-ups. We explore the link between knowledge acquisition, telecom specific knowledge and capability evolution in present work in a regulated and knowledge intensive context. Finally, we put forth a three stage framework mapping the evolution of technological capabilities among telecom start-ups, as well as identify regulatory bodies, standard making bodies and social network as facilitators in the capability evolution process.

Quo vadis? The entry into new technologies in advanced foreign subsidiaries of the multinational enterprise

The international business literature has identified the overall emergence of technologically advanced foreign subsidiaries of the multinational enterprise (MNE), but little is known about the extent to which individual subsidiaries are able to sustain their contribution to the technological and strategic renewal of the multinational group. This paper takes on this neglected question by empirically investigating longitudinal patterns in advanced foreign subsidiaries’ entry into technologies that are new to the entire multinational group. Repeated events analysis that draws upon the complete US patenting by 211 greenfield subsidiaries of 21 Swedish multinationals over the period 1893–2008 reveals accelerated entry into new technologies, but at moderate hazard rates. The results lend support for established theorizing about the evolution of technological capabilities in greenfield subsidiaries, but question extreme views on their growing strategic importance for the MNE. It appears instead that significant additions to the technological and strategic renewal of the multinational group should be discussed in the context of a select number of “superstar” subsidiaries, not necessarily what are believed to be general developments across all subsidiaries of the MNE.

Local effort and global connections the role of international linkages in the evolution of technological capabilities at SASOL

To what extent are international business connections useful to facilitate technological upgrading, and to what extent are they essential? And what types of international business connections are most appropriate in supporting firms' capacity development? The most successful examples of upgrading in the recent era, the Asian Tigers, were all outward-looking in their orientation, although the specific development strategies of the economic regions differed. Although some type of international business connection was important for all of them, they all invested in local capacity building. This article investigates the co-evolution of firm capacity and international linkages by looking at the South African chemicals firm Sasol.

Local search and the evolution of technological capabilities

The assumption that ‘local search’ constrains the direction of corporate R&D is central in evolutionary perspectives on technological change and competition. In this paper, we propose a network-analytic approach for identifying the evolution of firms' technological positions. The approach (1) permits graphical and quantitative assessments of the extent to which firms' search behavior is locally bounded, and (2) enables firms to be positioned and grouped according to the similarities in their innovative capabilities. The utility of the proposed framework is demonstrated by an analysis of strategic partnering and the evolution of the technological positions of the 10 largest Japanese semiconductor producers from 1982 to 1992.

Population, development, and human natures

At the dawn of this new millennium, the human enterprise is quickly becoming a globally unified one. Yet numerous obstacles and pitfalls remain in the path of a full and fair unification. A substantial fraction of the world’s population is well-off and increasingly connected through trade and communications systems. But an even larger fraction is struggling to make ends meet and is only sketchily connected to the globalizing economy. And a significant portion are barely surviving, with virtually no connection to the rest of the world. The majority of human beings live in regions where development still falls far short of even modest aspirations, while the already affluent minority strives for even more affluence. The critical challenge of the decades ahead will be to incorporate the lagging four-fifths of the world’s still-expanding population into the global economy while preserving the life support systems that make our planet habitable. In this paper we want to make three basic points about this dilemma. First, the problems of development are intertwined with human population size, population growth rates, and patterns of consumption, including the technologies used to provide that consumption. Second, progress in development will be negatively affected by those variables, primarily through their impacts on humanity’s natural capital—the ecosystems that supply civilization with a flow of indispensable goods and services. And, third, the failure of human cultural evolution in the areas of sociopolitical organization and ethics to keep pace with the evolution of technological capability constitutes a major impediment to the achievement of a sustainable civilization. While these are major obstacles to successful development, they also offer significant keys to finding answers. Taking a global view, it is clear that the ‘population‐consumption problem’ can adversely affect all people, and especially those in developing countries. This is perhaps most obvious in the area of climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1996). There is a high positive correlation between both the numbers of people and their consumption levels and the fluxes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere, although there is substantial variation in consumption levels and GHG fluxes among societies (Yang and Schneider, 1997‐1998; Hoffert et al. 1998). Furthermore, expansion of population and consumption is

Transition of Latecomer Firms from Technology Users to Technology Generators: Korean Semiconductor Firms

In this paper we investigate the evolution of technological capabilities of Korean semiconductor firms. First, we focus on the notion of rate and direction of technological building based upon technological using and generating capabilities. The rate was measured by development time gap and technological activities, such as patenting and number of publications. In the second part we identify three aspects of directions of the technological building process using patent content analysis, specific technological characteristics of semiconductor technologies and product portfolios. We argue that Korean semiconductor firms have deepened their technological capabilities and the measurement of this process is a key contribution of this paper.

Whereto the multinational? The evolution of technological capabilities in the multinational network

This paper empirically investigates how internationalization influences the generation of new technology within the multinational corporation. Data on the introduction of 756 technologies by 23 Swedish multinationals over the 1971–1990 period show that foreign units account for an increasing share of all new technologies that are introduced in the multinational network. Additionally, foreign units are associated with a significantly higher probability of entry into new and more distantly related fields of technology, creating a long-term drift into new technological capabilities. The data support the proposition that foreign acquisitions are particularly likely to introduce new and more distantly related technology to the multinational group, although this aspect of technological renewal predominantly applies to firms carrying out explicit international acquisition strategies. The findings are consistent with an evolutionary view of the multinational corporation, involving a gradual movement into new fields of technology through maturing international operations and more significant departures from established technology portfolios through events like foreign acquisitions. It is argued that international growth allows the multinational to leverage its accumulated experience in the exploitation of geographically dispersed and idiosyncratic technological capabilities. At the same time, the observations point to a fundamental, growing and perhaps underestimated tension between technological opportunity and coordination and control in the maturing multinational corporation.

The evolution of technological capabilities in the multinational corporation—dispersion, duplication and potential advantages from multinationality

This article examines longitudinal changes in the geographical location of advanced technological capabilities in the multinational corporation. Data on the postwar development of 24 Swedish multinationals show increasing dispersion and duplication of capabilities within individual technologies, offering flexibility advantages as well as an enhanced potential for cross-fertilization between dispersed units. The duplication of technological capabilities is shown to be a slow process, and the paper discusses the perceived tension between evolutionary growth and increasing commitments to foreign markets and the forces that tend to concentrate capabilities to a limited number of locations. Differences among individual firms and types of technology are discussed in this context.

宇宙活動の新しい展開

A national space program of the government generally provides a firm base for prediction of the future space activities well until the end of this century. For example, the latest issue of the Japanese space program prepared by the government Space Activities Commission has authorized development of satellites to be operational by 1993 and advanced studies on later projects. For the long range plan, the Commission organized a special panel which reported that the Japanese space activities should include manned space activities and the government space budget should be in-creased by five times more than the current one.The continuation of growth of world space activities can be indicated by the fact that the total number of artificial space objects and the annual human population in space are constantly increasing. Commercialization of space and manned space flight feature the current space activities in the world. The US and USSR emphasize space station for their main activities in space, and the European decid-ed to seek autonomous capability in the field of manned space flight.Finally, a personal view on the prospect of space activities through the end of the next century is briefly introduced in connection with evolution of technological capability in space.