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High technology governance and institutional adaptiveness: do technology policies usefully promote commercial innovation within the German biotechnology industry?

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  • Casper, Steven

Abstract

The German economy has widely been seen as failing to develop commercial innovation competencies necessary to compete in biotechnology, information technology, and other emerging new industries. Starting in the mid-1990s the German government has instituted a series of new technology policies designed to orchestrate the development of small entrepreneurial technology firms. These policies have fostered several hundred new entrepreneurial start-ups in Germany, many of which have adopted strategies that differ dramatically from those commonly associated with small and medium sized German firms. Developments in Germany represent an interesting challenge to prevailing institutional theory as applied to the study of advanced industrial economies, which tends to view the characteristics of organizations as strongly constrained by the orientation of a number of key national institutional frameworks. Focusing on biotechnology, this article examines the relative importance of national institutional frameworks as opposed to sector-specific policies that are presently pervasive in Germany. Analysis of the new firms demonstrates that Germany's new technology policies have facilitated important extensions within the business system that have, for the first time, allowed the systematic promotion of entrepreneurial technology companies. However, the dominant strategies of market specialization and company organizational patterns found within these companies have been strongly influenced by incentives and constraints created by long-established national institutional structures.

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  • Casper, Steven, 1999. "High technology governance and institutional adaptiveness: do technology policies usefully promote commercial innovation within the German biotechnology industry?," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economic Change and Employment FS I 99-307, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbece:fsi99307
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Steven Casper & Mark Lehrer & David Soskice, 1999. "Can High-technology Industries Prosper in Germany? Institutional Frameworks and the Evolution of the German Software and Biotechnology Industries," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 5-24.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nooteboom, B. & Gilsing, V.A., 2004. "Density And Strength Of Ties In Innovation Networks: A Competence And Governance View," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2004-005-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    2. Gilsing, V. & Nooteboom, B., 2004. "Density and strength of ties in innovation networks: an analysis of multimedia and biotechnology," Working Papers 04.16, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies.
    3. Gilsing, V.A. & Nooteboom, B., 2004. "Co-evolution in innovation systems: the case of pharmaceutical biotechnology," Working Papers 04.09, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies.

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