Title: Technological races in global industries

Authors: Hans W. Gottinger

Addresses: Institute of Management Science, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Abstract: We begin our study of technological racing by considering stochastic models that view corporations as moving objects approaching a stochastic destination. A major focus is the strategic orientation of corporations participating in such a race, revealing empirically observable phenomena such ascatch-up and leapfrogging, as supported by statistical measurements. Along with the analysis of behavioural patterns on the corporate or industry level is their aggregation on a national scale that extends to racing in economic growth among (groups of) countries. Statistical profiling of technological evolution and innovation is analysed as it relates to competitive racing and rivalry among leading firms. Among the performance criteria to be assessed are: frequency of frontier pushing, technological domination period, innovations vs. imitations in the race, innovation frequency when behind or ahead, nature of jumps, leapfrogging or frontier-sticking, interjump times and jump sizes, race closeness measures and interfrontier distance. A major conjecture of the paper is that technological racing patterns on a micro scale reinforce globalisation and limit control of national and industry policy.

Keywords: JEL classification; C1 (econometric and statistical methods); D4 (market structure and pricing); L1 (market structure, firm strategy and market performance).

DOI: 10.1504/IJTPM.2003.003157

International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 2003 Vol.3 No.1, pp.22-37

Published online: 13 Jul 2003 *

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