Elsevier

Research Policy

Volume 13, Issue 6, December 1984, Pages 343-373
Research Policy

Sectoral patterns of technical change: Towards a taxonomy and a theory

https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-7333(84)90018-0Get rights and content

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to describe and explain sectoral patterns of technical change as revealed by data on about 2000 significant innovations in Britain since 1945. Most technological knowledge turns out not to be “information” that is generally applicable and easily reproducible, but specific to firms and applications, cumulative in development and varied amongst sectors in source and direction. Innovating firms principally in electronics and chemicals, are relatively big, and they develop innovations over a wide range of specific product groups within their principal sector, but relatively few outside. Firms principally in mechanical and instrument engineering are relatively small and specialised, and they exist in symbiosis with large firms, in scale intensive sectors like metal manufacture and vehicles, who make a significant contribution to their own process technology. In textile firms, on the other hand. most process innovations come from suppliers.

These characteristics and variations can be classified in a three part taxonomy based on firms: (1) supplier dominated; (2) production intensive; (3) science based. They can be explained by sources of technology, requirements of users, and possibilities for appropriation. This explanation has implications for our understanding of the sources and directions of technical change, firms' diversification behaviour, the dynamic relationship between technology and industrial structure, and the formation of technological skills and advantages at the level of the firm. the region and the country.

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    The following paper draws heavily on the SPRU data bank on British innovations, described in J. Townsend, F. Henwood, G. Thomas, K. Pavitt and S. Wyatt, Innovations in Britain Since 1945, SPRU Occasional Paper Series No. 16, 1981. The author is indebted to Graham Thomas and to Sally Wyatt who helped with the statistical work, to numerous colleagues inside and outside SPRU for their comments and criticisms, and to Richard Levin and two anonymous referees for their detailed and helpful comments on a longer and more rambling earlier draft. The research has been financed by the Leverhulme Trust, as part of the SPRU programme on innovation and competitiveness.

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