Corporate knowledge diversification in the face of technological complexity: The case of industrial biotech

Abstract

In the course of late twentieth century, successive waves of molecular biological revolutions (recombinant proteins, monoclonal antibodies, genomics, proteomics, stem cells, tissue engineering, gene therapy) have emerged. As a result, technological knowledge base has become more complex. However, innovation and management studies have been ambivalent about this process. Part of the literature suggested that technological activity is highly industry-specific and accumulative. On the other hand, literature at the firm level has recognized that there has been corporate diversification. Such ambivalence reflects the tension between both micro process of technological diversification and technology convergence. One of the main empirical results of this paper is that inter-industrial convergence is localized covering some subsets of “industrial biotechnology” products. Secondly, patent data enable to distinguish between different kinds of corporate technology coherence: whereas health industry adopt conglomerate biotechnological diversification, industrial biotechnology corporations adopt a more coherent technology diversification enabling innovation and (dynamic) efficient growth.