Maison d'édition:Publisher:World Scientific URL officiel:Official URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0219877012500344 Mention légale:Legal notice:Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, vol. 9, no. 5, 23 pages. doi:10.1142 AbstractIn the past decade, the innovation literature has mainly targeted high-tech (HT) sectors due to their higher return on investment and important role in building new societies and economies. While the high-tech sector is still of a leading importance, whether medium and low tech (LMT) sectors should be equivalently considered when analyzing long term economic growth, in both leading and catching up economies, is a fundamental question. This paper is our second milestone comparing HT and LMT sectors from an innovation perspective, using a National System of Innovation (NSI) approach. The general aim of this paper is to find the main principles that govern the difference between the two industrial segments (HT and LMT) while controlling for supranational boundaries. In order to measure the effect of NSI, countries are divided into two groups: leading and catching up economies. Our results suggest that, with respect to HT, leading economies can be considered as innovators, while catching up economies are the imitators. Furthermore, HT in leading economies relies on product modularity to outsource various components probably to firms in catching up economies. Catching ups are putting greater emphasis on universities to produce knowledge. In addition, firms in catching up economies benefit from high accessibility to funds in order to grow various industrial sectors, especially LMT. The role of institutions and governments with respect to regulatory policies, intellectual property protections are of high importance for firms in catching up economies, especially in LMT. As a result of those important steps, the various agents in catching up economies have achieved sustainable growth, notably in LMT. In contrast, the same growth is observed for HT for firms in leading economies. Our results suggest that catching up countries are strategizing for this sectoral evolution, renewal and transformation process for both sectors, but with a stronger emphasis on LMT.

Référence:Citation:Rotaba, Ziad et Beaudry, Catherine (2009 Mention légale:Legal notice:In all cases, acknowledgement in the form of a full citation must be given to the journal as the original source of publication, together with a link to the journal webpage and/or DOI as soon as they are available. Ce fichier a été téléchargé à partir de PolyPublie, le dépôt institutionnel de Polytechnique MontréalThis file has been downloaded from PolyPublie, the institutional repository of Polytechnique Montréal http://publications.polymtl.ca AbstractIn the past decade, innovation studies have mainly focused on the High Tech (HT) sector due to its soaring Return on Investment (ROI), and the critical role it plays building societies and new economies. As a result, the innovation literature focus has deviated from the traditional, Low and Medium Tech (LMT) to HT sectors. This study, among a series of recently published work, stresses the major importance of LMT sectors in our current economies. Literature suggests that LMT sector is witnessing major multidimensional transformation, responding to changes in local and global markets. This research work compares LMT to HT sectors from an innovation perspective. It addresses multiple factors such as the nature of customers and their needs, the knowledge production mechanisms, the various factors that influence innovation in the firm's own sector, the resources inflow, growth in the sector, and the strategic and competitive dynamics dimension. Our results suggest a renewal and transformation is occurring to both the LMT and HT sectors. LMT is shifting towards differentiation, while HT is increasing its cost awareness dimension. Furthermore, HT firms are using both the linear model of innovation as well as the open innovation model. Firms in LMT that are generally conceived to be supplier dependent are enhancing their internal knowledge production mechanism to support their differentiation strategy. This renewal process did not misbalance the supplier, user role that HT and LMT play respectively. In fact our results show that LMT is still the user of the General purpose technologies that HT produces.