Research On Risk Factors Of Information And Communication Technology Commercialization

Nowadays Information and Communication Technology is the core driving force ofsocio-economic growth, however, its commercialization success rate is generally low. Thus,how to improve the success rate of Information and Communication Technologycommercialization has become the very concern of governments, academia and businesssectors.This research is designed to explore the risk factors of Information and CommunicationTechnology commercialization based on the Grounded Theory. It covers the following threequestions:(1) What risk factors does Information and Communication Technologycommercialization face?(2) Among them, what are the most important10risk factors(TOP10)?(3) What is the structural relationship of the ten TOP10risk factors, and what arethe root risk factors?Firstly, three Information and Communication Technology companies, namely A, B andC, are chosen as the samples to collect data through depth interviews according to theGrounded Theory methodology.21risk factors are identified and a risk factor model forInformation and Communication Technology commercialization is built through data analysisand theory construction. The model divides the21risk factors into three dimensions, whichare technology management, project management and dynamic capabilities.On the basis of the identified risk factors, the Analytic Hierarchy Process is used toevaluate the risk factors, which is to calculate the weights of each risk factor and sort them inorder of importance. The most important10risk factors are selected as follows: outdatedtechnology and supporting facilities, unclear strategic objectives, located technology life cyclestage, weak intellectual property protection, slow technology update, inadequate capability toimprove product quality, lack of systematic training, difficult to position market, unscientificperformance evaluation and incentive mechanism and a single distribution channel.Then the structural relationship of TOP10risk factors is analyzed through InterpretiveStructural Modeling (ISM) method, and consequently an interpretive structural model of thekey risk factors is constructed. The three root risk factors lie in the bottom of the model,which respectively are weak intellectual property protection, located technology life cyclestage and lack of systematic training.Finally, the Information and Communication Technology commercialization processes ofM Company in the EU Innovation Relay and large state-owned F Company are analyzedusing multiple case study method to verify the validity of the research results and the diversity of the key risk factors and their structural relationship are illustrated.In summary, this research is to study the risk factors of Information and CommunicationTechnology commercialization, propose the interpretive structural model of key risk factorsand identify the root risk factors based on Grounded Theory, Technology CommercializationTheory, Dynamic Capabilities Theory and Risk Management Theory, with an aim to improvethe success rate of its commercialization.