Impacts of cooperative R&D projects on technology convergence

Abstract

A discourse about converging technologies or technology convergence, especially in the early of 2000s, has become a global agenda from the perspective of that technology convergence could provide knowledge resources for national competence necessary for leading industrial paradigm shift. The US and the EU took the lead of technology convergence initiatives and many other countries such as Korean followed them. According to Milton Mueller(1998) [1], Nicholas Negroponte in 1978 almost for the first time mentioned about convergence when seeing the phenomenon that the industrial boundaries of print, telecommunication and broadcasting became blurred, and technological integration of print, telecommunication and broadcasting systems proceeded. However, Curran [2] insisted that Nathan Rosenberg in 1963 first coined ‘technological convergence’ in his article. Whoever fist coined the word, convergence broadly may be defined a phenomenon or process that borders of industries or technologies go blur and innovations become prolific on the borders, and then a brand-new technology or industry merges. Hacklin [3] said that convergence is a sequential process proceeding from knowledge to industry. Knowledge convergence emerges from co-evolutionary spill over between previously unlined and distant knowledge bases, thus induces the erosion of boundaries of industry-specific knowledge. Likewise, convergence of technologies can be observed where previously distinct technologies increasingly start to share common technological properties (Rosenberg, 1963). Technology convergence is a transitional process brining up technological innovations. In the practical field, the NSF [4] refers technology convergence as the synergistic combination of nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) science and technology, and relates it to a long-term basic research agenda in which nanotechnology plays a critical role for converging while The EU [5] announces that converging technologies are enabling technologies and knowledge systems, which is more concerned with innovation coming into market success. In Korean version, the National Science and Technology Commission explains that technology convergence is an enabler that leads economic, societal, and cultural changes by incorporating creative values that come from synergic combination among various technologies. In the meantime, previous researches suggest that convergence intrinsically implies collaboration not only from the perspective of within-organizations, but even cross-industry boundaries. Empirically, correlation between convergence developments and cooperation strategies is observed. Nevertheless, the association between convergence and collaboration is still obscure. While collaboration and networks among organizations are perceived intrinsic for any kind of convergence from the perspective of management of innovation, the relationship between the two remains not clear

for example, what this relationship implies in terms of strategic management and innovation. Hence, the characteristics of the association between convergence and collaboration among entities need to be further explored. From this perspective, a significant part of contributions and values of our research is to explore the relationship between characteristics of cooperative R&D projects and technology convergence. In the research and development field of Korea including policy authorities, the word ‘Technology convergence’ is regarded as inevitable for the future technological competence, as much we can easily find the word every corner of R&D projects and programs especially supplemented by the government since policy makers want to strategically use technology convergence to beat the global competition. In practical perspective for researchers, the term is useful for getting government funding however it seems misused or abused sometimes. It is natural that a norm has been formed for years that converging technologies entails huge R&D inputs. This kind of R&D policies could be legitimate and backed up by some scholars such as Beck and et al. (2004) who content that R&D expenditures have highly significant positive effects on the probability of developing product innovations. Nevertheless, many others insist that the relationship between financial resources and innovative performance such as patents is an inverted-U one, but we have hardly found government reports about how R&D inputs impact technology con-vergence even though the Korean government has poured a huge amount of public money into developing con-verging technologies. Academically and practically, associating cooperation with technology convergence is still obscure when it comes to Korean R&D fields even though collaboration is an intrinsic element of any convergence related managerial activities, and convergence implies collaboration. From this perspective, we tried to contribute to the strategic management of innovative performance, specifically technology convergence. Penning (2001), Becker (2004), Hacklin (2008) and many other scholars have pointed that current theory falls short in characterizing the link between technology convergence and collaboration, thus need to be further explored. From the perspective of technology convergence, we’d like to suggest that converging technologies or technology convergence need to be further-clarified, theoretically-refined, and practically-classified. Technology convergence is so widely used and mentioned, thus we need to clarify the range and depth of it. Thus, technology convergence should be further researched from the perspective of innovation theory. From the perspective of cooperative R&D, it could be not a norm that firms are usually knowledge recipients while universities and research institutes are knowledge suppliers. In addition, as a knowledge provider, firms may differently behave according to their size, and intermediary organizations (usually facilitators) may be not beneficial for technological performance. Consuming a huge amount of resources might not be justified under the name of technology convergence. While prior researches regard that exploitative innovations are incremental and exploratory innovation are radical/disruptive, Hacklin refers technological convergence as an incremental innovation becoming disruptive. However, the stance of technology convergence from the perspective of innovation needs to be further developed and empirically researched.