Complementary Hypotheses for Technology Analyses and Innovation Management

Abstract

Technology is a complex system formed by different elements given by incremental and radical innovations to satisfy needs, achieve goals and/or solve problems of adopters to take advantage of important opportunities or to cope with consequential environmental threats. This study suggests complementary hypotheses for technology analysis and innovation management concerning the nature and evolution of technology in markets and society. The complementary hypotheses presented here to explain the development of technology leading to corporate, industrial and economic change can be listed as follows: demand for technology hypothesis, induced-innovation hypothesis, learning by doing hypothesis, learning via diffusion hypothesis, specialization via scale hypothesis, disadvantage of beginning hypothesis, path-dependence hypothesis, competitive substitution hypothesis, predator-prey hypothesis, and killer technology hypothesis, technological parasitism hypothesis. This study also proposes in some cases, basic models to operationalize these hypotheses for studies of applied economics of innovation. Overall, then, technology analysis and innovation management should consider a method of inquiry based on different complementary hypotheses for comprehensive analyses that lead to in-depth explanations of the relationships underlying the interaction of technologies in economic systems leading to development of economies and human society.

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Technology Analysis; Innovation Management; Technological Change; Technological development; Diffusion of Technology; Multiple Working Hypotheses; Technological Substitutions; Innovation Processes; Technical Progress; Complex Systems

JEL Classification: O30; O31; O32; O33; O39