Innovation in low-tech industries: Current conditions and future prospects

Abstract

This paper deals with an industrial sector that will be referred to as “low–technology” or non–research–intensive and that comprises mostly mature industries. In recent years, a growing body of innovation literature has dealt with the relevance and prospects of low–and medium–technology (LMT) in advanced economies. This research focus is above all motivated by criticism of the mainstream of innovation debate with its high–tech focus. However, LMT research can instructively show that non–research–intensive industries are surprisingly innovative and play an essential role for the development of modern economies. Following the literature, the industrial LMT sector holds forward–looking innovation potential based on both the intelligent modification of available technologies and existing knowledge and their combination with new high–tech components. Therefore, the research findings outlined here culminate in the thesis that “hybrid” innovations open up promising development perspectives for traditional industries. Hybrid innovations are understood to be innovations based on distinct market–oriented modifications of available technologies and of existing knowledge as well as especially on their combination with new high–tech components. The methodological base of the argumentation is a systematic analysis of LMT industry research results from approximately the last 10 years.