Integration of Technology Management and Its Development: Interlevel Overlap and Technology Identification

Abstract

Innovation processes have become more open and complex. Large corporations and vertically integrated R&D labs are giving way to distributed networks of innovation which connect different companies and organizations into innovation ecosystems. Business and technology strategies of smaller companies and public policy should follow this trend and reconsider the roles of technology, human capital, competition policy, intellectual property, and public data in promoting the environment for open innovation. Integrating technology and business trends, technology and business strategy, technology capacities with customers´ needs, technology and business processes; this requires a three-step mechanism of technology management (TM), namely integration of technology identification, implementation and potential technology commercialization processes. TM requires the creation of a functional technology network and good communication channels between strategic and technology managers, technologists and workers, and between a company and its stakeholders. This partly methodological and partly analytical study focuses on identifying the links within TM, especially in a technology identification phase and between TM and other business processes that could ensure maximum synergies and benefits for a company. Its added value also lies in the bibliometrical statistics of the ScienceDirect and EBSCOhost databases (1960 - 2010) for the identification of trends in TM.