Sectoral innovation policy adopting socio-technical systems (STS) perspectives: The case of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in five leading countries

Taeyoung Park, Jeehoon Ki and Jae-Yun Ho

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2024, vol. 209, issue C

Abstract: The advent of the so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution” technologies has led to increased use of policy to support innovation in particular sectors of emerging technologies; however, limited academic research has been conducted on such sectoral innovation policy. As greater understanding is required of the socio-technical contexts in which such policies are implemented, this study develops a conceptual framework based on the socio-technical systems (STS) perspective. Together with the concept of innovation policy instrument mixes, the proposed framework allows for more effective design and analysis of sector-specific innovation policy for emerging technologies that have high societal impact. The framework is then used in a comparative case study of the autonomous vehicle (AV) sector across five leading countries through a comprehensive review of policy documents. The case study revealed similarities and differences in AV policy across countries, demonstrating the need for sectoral innovation policy that is more tailored in specific socio-technical contexts. The study also provides practical guidelines for innovation policy to support other emerging high-tech sectors. The increasing complexity of policy mixes results in challenges of policy coordination and evaluation hence, policy patching can be a more realistic and beneficial strategy than policy packaging.

Keywords: Innovation policy; Sectoral innovation policy; Socio-technical systems; Emerging technology; Autonomous vehicles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162524005560
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:209:y:2024:i:c:s0040162524005560

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2024.123758

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 ().