Study On The Mechanism Of Emerging Technology Co-evolution Between Multi-elements And On Multi-level

Emerging technologies have been paid more and more attention by government, industrial practitioners and management researchers all over the world. Emerging technologies create opportunities for the later comers to catch-up technologically and economically. The high uncertainty and complexity of emerging technology have been challenging traditional management theories. In this research, we argue that understanding the evolution mechanism of emerging technology is a key to reduce the high uncertainty. The evolutionary process of emerging technology does not only involve the evolution of technology itself along a special technology trajectory but also involves the co-evolution between technology and other elements. It is the interaction of these elements that make the new technology-economic system change to a new one or substitute the old one. Due to involving multi-level and multi-element, the evolution of emerging technology is of high complexity, and the high complexity make the management of emerging technology facing high uncertainty.This dissertation constructs a holistic analytical and theoretical framework about emerging technology's co-evolution between multi-elements and on multi-level based on the large technology system theory, technology transition theory, firm capability theory and micro-economic analysis theory. Furthermore, this thesis studies the co-evolution between market demand and emerging technology, the co-evolution between firm capability and emerging technology, as well as the co-evolution between complementary environment and emerging technology. The methods of computer simulation, complex network and case study are used in this study.Firstly, the concept of emerging technology evolution is identified and the focused question is defined. The characteristics of the evolution of emerging technologies, such as co-evolution, multi-facets are presented. The evolution patterns of emerging technology are classified according to different objects, and different evolution patterns are comparative analyzed.Secondly, the"three elements and multi-level"co-evolutionary theoretical conceptual model of emerging technology is proposed. From the perspective of co-evolutionary system, main elements in the system are defined, and the interactive influences between different elements are studied. Furthermore, the conceptual model is illustrated by a case.Thirdly, based on the heterogeneity of potential market of emerging technology, the process and mechanism of co-evolution between market demand and technology is studied, the fundamental working mechanism on how heterogeneity of demand affect the evolution of emerging technology is emphasized. Provided bounded rationality of the firms, the dynamic mechanism on how heterogeneity of demand pulls the evolution of emerging technology is analyzed using the computer simulation and microeconomic analysis. After that, a case is studied to test the theoretical conclusions. The author argues that the evolution process of emerging technology is the process that the potential application domain of emerging technology are explored sequentially, and the process is driven by the interactive learning between emerging technology and demand. An important conclusion in this part is that the demand heterogeneity affects the choice of research and development in firms, consequently affects the direction and speed of emerging technology evolution.Fourthly, firm's capability is classified according to literature review. An evolution cycle model of emerging technology is constructed. Based on capability classification and evolutionary cycle model, the author analyzed how firm's capability influence the evolution of emerging technology through the formation and implementation of firm's strategy and conversely how the emerging technology impact the development of firm's capability from the routine perspective and cognitive perspective. The main conclusions in this part are as followes:1)The influence of firm's capability on emerging technology is mediated by strategy, and the key driving factors in different stage of emerging technology evolution are different, so that the capability to managing emerging technology is also different;2)The influence of static capability on emerging technology is mainly existed in every evolutionary stage, and the influence of dynamic capability on emerging technology is mainly existed during the alternation of different stage;3) The influence of emerging technology on capability is mediated by external environments.Lastly, taken the emerging technology cluster as research objects, from the perspective of cluster innovation network, the research question that how the learning efficiency of innovation network affects the diffusion speed of emerging technology is analyzed. Based on that, the author studied how the complementary environment influences the evolution of emerging technology using the complex theory and simulation method. Main conclusions are:1)The global information about the emerging technology has important effect on the diffusion speed during the construction of complementary environment;2)The other important factor that affect the construction of complementary environment is the relationship based on trust between firms.