Systems of technological innovation: a review of research activities taking the case of nanotechnology and India

ABSTRACT

Systems of innovation can play an important role in linking technological innovation to manufacturing and industrial competitiveness. This paper aims to understand the systems and actors from a perspective of cooperative strategies, taking the case of a key emerging industry – nanotechnology. Longitudinal trends in R&D output worldwide and in select large countries were analysed based on bibliometrics. S-curves were adapted to detect the transitions for select countries. Tech mining was used to identify patterns of cooperation among countries. Academic research emerged to be the strength of Asia and India, but major challenges remain on several other elements of the system of innovation.

KEYWORDS:

• Tech mining
• industrial competitiveness
• industry-academia cooperation
• technological capability building
• diffusion of nanotechnology
• cooperative strategies

Acknowledgements

Constructive feedback from two anonymous reviewers and James Fleck was very useful to improve the paper. We acknowledge inputs from Professor Ramgopal Rao, IIT Delhi, and Professor Gayatri Doctor, CEPT University at different stages. Assistance from Dr Gouri Gargate, Dr R. Mukundan, Dr Ruchita Gupta and Divyang is appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kirankumar S. Momaya ([email protected]) is a professor of technology management and competitiveness at the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. He earned his Ph.D. (1996) from the University of Toronto. His research interests are in the fields of technology management, technological and business competitiveness, and cooperative strategies for organisational and innovation capabilities, growth and sustainability. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Advances in Management Research, International Journal of Global Business and Competitiveness and other emerging journals. He, often with members of the Group on Competitiveness, has contributed more than 50 papers in peer review journals including IIMB Management Review, Vikalpa, JFSM, Competitiveness Review, Journal of Management Development and the leading MoT journal of Asia, JSSPRM.

Lalit Lalwani is a research assistant with the Group on Competitiveness at the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay. His research areas includes technology management and manufacturing competitiveness. He is an MBA in Technology Management from CEPT University, Ahmedabad and graduated in Automotive Engineering from Sardar Patel University, Gujarat.

ORCiD

Kirankumar S. Momaya http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7658-2006

Lalit Lalwani http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6623-3785

Notes

1. Nanomaterial or nanoparticle or nanocrystal or nanocomposite or carbon nanotubes or fullerenes or nanoscale or nanotubes or nanostructures or nanofiber or strain resistant fabrics or nanocoating or nanofilms or X-ray diffraction or particle size.

Additional information

Funding

The authors heartily acknowledge the support from SJMSOM, IIT Bombay for providing an environment to explore such research. We are thankful for the financial support from IITB research internships and the Industrial Research and Consultancy Centre (IRCC), IITB.