Brave old world: Accounting for ‘high-tech’ knowledge in ‘low-tech’ industries

Manufacturing in the knowledge economy: innovation in low-tech industries

“…Whether the firms in an industry primarily create incremental or radical innovations depends fundamentally on the characteristics of the industry. In general, this can be termed the industrial knowledge base ( While, on the one hand, some low-tech firms increasingly move into technology intensive product categories (Robertson and Patel 2005;Mendonça 2009), the majority of low-tech firms, on the other hand, rely on a predominantly synthetic knowledge base that allows them to develop customer specific solutions and continuously improve products and production processes. Low-tech firms utilize transformative capabilities to convert global knowledge, which is available worldwide, to knowledge that is specific to a certain context, and configurational capabilities to synthesize novelties by organizing knowledge, artifacts and actors in new ways through collaborating, (re-)designing and tapping into various types of knowledge pools .…”

“…Increasing diversification of low-tech firms into more research intensive fields (Robertson and Patel 2005;Mendonça 2009) is associated with a high frequency of joint innovation projects between high-and low-tech firms where partners bring together analytical and synthetic knowledge . These collaborations are beneficial for both sides as firms relying on either analytical or synthetic knowledge tend to be less innovative than firms that combine the two knowledge bases in their development processes , and the projects provide access to competencies and knowledge which are otherwise difficult to acquire (synthetic knowledge for high-tech firms, analytical knowledge for low-tech firms).…”

Comparative Analysis of Policy-Mixes of Research and Innovation Policies in Central and Eastern European Countries

“…electronics components and sub-systems) supplied by the so-called high-tech (HT) industries. (Bender et al (eds), 2005;Hirsch-Kreinsen et al (eds), 2005;Hirsch-Kreinsen and Jacobson (eds), 2008;Hirsch-Kreinsen and Schwinge (eds), 2014;Jensen et al, 2007;Kaloudis et al, 2005;Mendonça, 2009;Sandven et al, 2005;von Tunzelmann and Acha, 2005) Thus, demand by the LMT sectors constitutes major market opportunities for firms in the HT sectors, and also provide strong incentives -and ideas -for their RTDI activities. (Robertson et al, 2009) Technological innovations can hardly be introduced without organisational and managerial innovations.…”

Performance Evaluation for Knowledge Transfer Organizations: Best European Practices and a Conceptual Framework

“…The interaction between some research disciplines, such as physics and chemistry, may lead to new research areas; moreover, where this interaction is not yet strong enough "space between fields may become the ground for a new area" OECD (2010). Second, due to technological convergence (Daim et al, 2009;Mendonça, 2009;OECD, 2010) that more recently affects not only high-tech companies but also medium and low-tech ones, new product or service concepts are likely to emerge at the intersection of different sectors. Consequently, firms need KTOs' assistance to analyse in-depth their own and other industries' state-of-the-art and trends, to forecast technological scenarios and scan patents data sets in search of ideas that are carrier of radical innovations and thus far from their in-house prior knowledge.…”