A Morphology-Driven Method for Measuring Technology Complementarity:Empirical Study Involving Alzheimer’s Disease

Purpose:Measuring the exact technology complementarity between different institutions is necessary to obtain complementary technology resources for R&D cooperation.Design/methodology/approach:This study constructs a morphology-driven method for measuring technology complementarity,taking medical field as an example.First,we calculate semantic similarities between subjects(S and S)and action-objects(AO and AO)based on the Metathesaurus,forming clusters of S and AO based on a semantic similarity matrix.Second,we identify key technology issues and methods based on clusters of S and AO.Third,a technology morphology matrix of several dimensions is constructed using morphology analysis,and the matrix is filled with subjects-action-objects(SAO)structures according to corresponding key technology issues and methods for different institutions.Finally,the technology morphology matrix is used to measure the technology complementarity between different institutions based on SAO.Findings:The improved technology complementarity method based on SAO is more of a supplementary and refined framework for the traditional IPC method.Research limitations:In future studies we will reprocess and identify the SAO structures which were not in the technology morphology matrix,and find other methods to characterize key technical issues and methods.Furthermore,we will add the comparison between proposed method and traditional and mostly used complementarity measurement method based on industry chain and industry code.Practical implications:This study takes medical field as an example.The morphology-driven method for measuring technology complementarity can be migrated and applied for any given field.Originality/value:From the perspective of complementary technology resources,this study develops and tests a more accurate morphology-driven method for technology complementarity measurement.

Market Dissimilarity, Technology Complementarity and Collaborative Innovation Performance: The Moderating Effects of IT Adoption

As the strategic alliance between firms is becoming increasingly popular, and collaborative innovation is becoming an important management issue, the lack of a holistic framework of different collaborative partners’ characteristics and their different effects on firms’ innovation is becoming a critical research gap. Another intension of our study is to explore the moderating factors that affect the market dissimilarity/technology complementarity—innovation performance relationships. Using the data of collaboration between innovative firms, we tested our hypotheses using partial least squares(PLS). The results show that both market dissimilarity and technology complementarity between collaborative partners relate positively to focal firms’ innovation performance, in terms of both novelty and efficiency,while technology complementarity is more effective. Our results also indicate that IT adoption negatively moderates the relationship between market dissimilarity and collaborative innovation novelty/efficiency,and the relationship between technology complementarity and innovation efficiency, while in terms of the relationship between technology complementarity and innovation novelty, the moderating effect becomes significantly positive. This study extends previous research on collaborative innovation.