Technological capability catching up : follow the normal way or deviate

The thesis explores a puzzle in technological capability development: many firms in China follow the "normal" way of technological capability development suggested by the existing literature but have not made much progress, while some firms that deviate from the "normal" way have made impressive progress. The thesis uses a multiple-case replication design to identify the key factors and mechanisms that affect technological capability development in China. Six cases are studied, each of which is treated as an independent experiment. The study does not follow any specific theory of technological capability development in order for conceptual insights to emerge. The study finds that technological capability development in the 6 firms studied is affected by three groups of factors-R&D characteristics, organizational conditions, and environmental conditions, and that these three groups of factors also form a nested relationship. First, technological capability development is directly influenced by R&D characteristics such as the timing of investing in R&D, level of R&D, human resources in R&D, collaboration with the knowledge frontier, and focus of R&D. R&D with the characteristics of early start, high level of investment, high quality human resource, deep collaboration with the knowledge frontier, and focusing more on knowledge intensive technology are more likely to lead to the development of proprietary technology. Second, characteristics of R&D are directly affected by organizational conditions such as urgency, confidence and resources in developing proprietary technology. High urgency and high confidence are more likely to lead to R&D characteristics more conducive for technological capability development.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Gao, Xudong, 1966-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Edward S. Steinfeld.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29440

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/29440