Strategic similarity in the co-evolution of technological and business diversification for firm growth: Evidence from smart-manufacturing related firms

Hyunmin Lee

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2023, vol. 189, issue C

Abstract: The reflection of external firms' strategies enables a firm to optimize its evolutionary processes that keep a balance between path-dependent and self-renewing evolution. This study employs firm-level strategic similarity and defines it as the extent to which a firm's technological or business profile resembles those of other firms. The study investigates the role of firm-level strategic similarity in the co-evolutionary relationship of technological and business diversification for firm growth. To this end, it constructs a panel dataset of applicant firms obtaining granted patents of smart-manufacturing technologies during 2010–2019 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The results show that a firm's strategic similarity is a significant driving force of the variation of technological and business profiles through diversification within the firm. Particularly, the firm's business strategic similarity is the imperative determinant of the co-evolutionary path through technological and business diversification for firm sales growth. The findings suggest firm-level strategic similarity plays a critical role in the firm's evolutionary paths to balance between exploitative and exploratory innovation for firm growth.

Keywords: Organizational evolutionary perspective; Firm-level strategic similarity; Technological diversification; Business diversification; Firm growth; Smart manufacturing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162523000410
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:189:y:2023:i:c:s0040162523000410

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122356

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().