Going Soft : How the Rise of Software Based Innovation led to the Decline of Japan’s IT Industry and the Resurgence of Silicon Valley
This paper documents a shift in the nature of innovation in the information technology (IT) industry. Using comprehensive data on all IT patents granted by the USPTO from 1980-2002, we find strong evidence of a change in IT innovation that is systematic, substantial, and increasingly dependent on software. This change in the nature of IT innovation has had differential effects on the performance of the IT industries in the United States and Japan. Using a broad unbalanced panel of US and Japanese publicly listed IT firms in the period 1983-1999, we show that (a) Japanese IT innovation relies less on software advances than US IT innovation, (b) the innovation performance of Japanese IT firms is increasingly lagging behind that of their US counterparts, particularly in IT sectors that are more software intensive. The findings of this paper thus provide a fresh explanation for the relative decline of the Japanese IT industry in the 1990s. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence consistent with the hypothesis that human resource constraints played a role in preventing Japanese firms from adapting to the shift in the nature of innovation in IT
Year of publication: |
2014
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Authors: | Arora, Ashish ; Branstetter, Lee ; Drev, Matej |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
Subject: | Japan | Softwareindustrie | Software industry | Internationaler Wettbewerb | International competition | Innovationswettbewerb | Technology competition | IKT-Sektor | ICT industry |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | 1 Online-Ressource (68 p) |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Notes: | Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments January 18, 2009 erstellt |
Other identifiers: | 10.2139/ssrn.1764033 [DOI] |
Classification: | O32 - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D ; O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives ; O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes |
Source: | ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014185789