The construction of a new technological innovation system in a follower country: Wind energy in Portugal

Nuno Bento and Margarida Fontes

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2015, vol. 99, issue C, 197-210

Abstract: This article analyzes the process of construction of a new innovation system based on wind energy in a “follower” context. The technological innovation systems framework is used to analyze the process of technology diffusion as well as the emergence of a new wind sector in Portugal, where this renewable energy technology showed a spectacular development in the past decade. This framework highlights the main processes or functions that occur in the diffusion of a new technology. The evidence obtained demonstrates that the fulfillment of these functions, which were mostly studied in the context of pioneer countries, is still pertinent to explain the formation of a wind energy system in this follower country. Yet the type of resources and the nature of the activities needed to adopt the technology in the latter often differ. This case provides new insights into the importance of functions that enhance the follower's capacity to assimilate the new technology (e.g. local knowledge development, experimentation), thus creating the conditions for a fast move as soon as innovations become sufficiently mature in the core.

Keywords: Technological innovation systems; Spatial diffusion; Absorptive capacity; Wind energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L2 O33 O38 Q42 Q55 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162515002048
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:99:y:2015:i:c:p:197-210

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2015.06.037

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 ().