International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management

Quantitative technology forecasting uses quantitative methods to understand and project technological changes. It is a broad field encompassing many different techniques and has been applied to a vast range of technologies. A widely used approach in this field is trend extrapolation. Based on the literature available to us, there has been little or no attempt made to systematically review the empirical evidence on quantitative trend extrapolation techniques. This study attempts to close this gap by conducting a systematic review of the technology forecasting literature addressing the application of quantitative trend extrapolation techniques. We identified 25 studies relevant to the objective of this research and classified the techniques used in the studies into different categories, among which the growth curves and time series methods were shown to remain popular over the past decade while the newer methods, such as machine learning-based hybrid models, have emerged in recent years. As more effort and evidence are needed to determine if hybrid models are superior to traditional methods, we expect a growing trend in the development and application of hybrid models to technology forecasting.

Digitalization is driving discontinuous changes in traditional industries such as in sectors of industrial goods, automotive, chemicals and pharma, and industrial services. However, many affected companies are slow to adapt their businesses. Digital maturity concerns the status quo of digitalization in these companies and must be pursued if the company is to remain competitive. By drawing on theory-based responses to digitalization, a maturity assessment index was derived. A quantitative survey generated 160 complete datasets from German companies operating in traditional industries. The findings suggest a medium level of digital maturity. Six archetypes of digitalized organizations and a positive impact on profits were identified. These results provide indications of five generic paths for increasing digital maturity.

This paper deals with cities’ transformation from the perspectives of smartness, sustainability, and resilience, to stress the contribution of private firms. Indeed, technology providers globally have been observed as being partners of local authorities, mainly with reference to service platforms. To accomplish this aim, we reviewed the literature, considering the most relevant contributions on the themes, to establish an analytical framework; further on, we discussed 15 illustrative case studies — from a wider list — of firms involved in smart, sustainable, and resilient initiatives. The paper offers an analytical framework to merge, consisting of the five key features of smart, sustainable, and resilient cities, and leads to opportunities to further investigate the contribution of firms to cities’ transformation in a new way that embeds multiple perspectives.

This study investigates whether managing the relationship between the imitation of sources’ R&D practices and source–recipient interactions is critical for the recipients’ innovation of technology transfer because the choice of source–recipient interactions dominates the efficacy of recipients’ imitation. This study tests its hypotheses by using a sample of technology transfer experiences from among 86 electronics firms from 2003 to 2012 in Taiwan, with data collected from the responses to a mailed survey. For a focal firm acting as a recipient during technology transfer, results show that the imitation of a source’s R&D practices has a significant and positive influence on a recipient’s innovation. Relational embeddedness is the only appropriate source–recipient interaction that complements the imitation of a source’s R&D practices and then effectively promotes a recipient’s innovation. However, the source–recipient interactions of both the technology source lead and the technology recipient lead cannot moderate the positive relationship between the imitation of the source’s R&D practices and the recipient’s innovation. Identifying these three source–recipient interactions can harness a recipient’s innovation benefits from technology transfer.

The transformation of the energy system toward a sustainable energy supply is driven by a continuous development of new technologies. To cope with the challenges emerging from fast-paced changes, more flexible forms of organizing technology development are required. This paper explores how design factors for organizational agility (OA) can be described in the context of technology development. Therefore, structured interviews with 28 power-technology developers with theoretical or practical knowledge of agility were conducted. The results revealed a list of design factors for OA along with four organizational levels. The elaborated factors provide multifaceted design levers to shape an agile organization in technology development.

Design/methodology/approach: A primary quantitative study was conducted using a structured questionnaire. To test our hypotheses across different cultures and increase the generalizability of our findings, we surveyed potential users of freemium mobile games in the UK and Singapore. Our final sample consisted of 295 users. Purpose: While a lot of research focus has been placed on mobile games, studies on the factors influencing the adoption of this form of entertainment do not distinguish between pay-to-play and freemium games. We argue that the freemium model, where the user downloads a stripped-down version of a game for free and pays for updates, requires distinct focus. Our research aims are to: a) explore the factors determining the adoption of freemium mobile gaming as a form of entertainment and b) identify the conditions under which the gap between intending to play freemium mobile games and making in-game purchases is created. Findings: Our study’s contribution to current research is twofold. Firstly, its findings reveal the factors determining the adoption of freemium mobile games using TAM. Secondly, our findings indicate the additional factors that bridge the gap between intention to play and intention to pay, namely loyalty with playing mobile games and perceived economic value. Originality/value: To our knowledge this is the first study exploring the factors determining the adoption of freemium mobile gaming as a form of entertainment and identify the conditions under which the gap between intending to play freemium mobile games and making in-game purchases is created.

The basis of co-evolution of technological capabilities and industrial development is investigated in several studies. Given that, this paper considers pillars of the catching-up process and factors of entering the MIT (Middle Income Trap) for latecomers and aims to investigate the linkages between the “manufacturing sector growth” and “scientific and technological knowledge”. In this context, a times series analysis based on the ARDL methodology is used to explore the long-run and short-run dependencies between the manufacturing value-added and a set of variables that represent the scientific and technological knowledge. South Korea, Mexico, and Turkey are the countries chosen for our investigation. The patents and scientific articles are utilized as the basic measures of “scientific and technological knowledge” for the period 1990–2017. The main finding of the ARDL analysis is that the three counties have different manufacturing growth trajectories due to the differences in the use of human capital and the production of “scientific and technological knowledge”.

Advance of digital technologies brings great benefits but takes users at risk of the dark sides of the internet. Preventive mechanisms and privacy-preserving solutions could overcome this challenge. As such, self-sovereign identities (SSIs) provide users with increased control over personal information. However, users neglect their privacy in favor of the most convenient solution. In this paper, we empirically examine how information privacy influences adoption of SSIs. Our results contradict the existing theory that privacy is critical to the success of identity management (IdM) systems. Analogous to the privacy paradox, the study does not lend empirical support that perceived privacy has an impact on the adoption of an SSI. On the contrary, these findings contradict the prevailing view of privacy as a key factor for IdM systems and contribute to knowledge on privacy and adoption behavior.