Innovation Dynamics of Materials Technology

Technological capital drives technological innovation if it is appropriately used; in reality, however, many kinds of management constraints hamper its effective use. This chapter elucidates changes in the use of technological capital from the technology spillover perspective. Tracking patent applications and analyzing the relationships among them have enabled us to conduct microscopic analyses of technology spillovers. The authors classify technology spillover structures by organization and technological field, forming a matrix of two-by-two arrays and applying it to Japan’s R&D in compound semiconductor materials. In the 1980s, technology management was affected by the characteristics of an industrial society and spillover was therefore limited to individual firms and technological fields. In the 1990s, technology spillover shrank, reflecting organizational inertia in technology management. In the early 2000s, technology spillover broadened across a wider range of industries and technological fields, reflecting changes in science and technology policy and technology management that was ripe for open innovation.