Technological Learning and Competitive Performance New Horizons in the Economics of Innovation

`This book is an impressive, original and substantive contribution to the literature on capability development in “latecomer” firms. It furthers and deepens understanding of the intricate processes of technological learning and provides insights into the organisational needs of learning, and the interactions between particular strategies for learning.

The amount of new empirical material is impressive, well presented and carefully analysed. The work can become a benchmark for future studies of capability building.' - Sanjaya Lall, University of Oxford, UK Paulo Figueiredo comprehensively examines how and why latecomer companies differ in the manner and rate at which they accumulate technological capability over time.

He focuses on how key features of the underlying learning process influence the paths of technological capability accumulation and, in turn, the rate of improvement in operational performance. The author details the various processes and mechanisms by which a company acquires knowledge from external and internal sources, through individuals, and converts it, or fails to convert it, into organizational assets.

These different ways of managing technological learning are studied in detail during the lifetime of two of the largest steel companies in Brazil. He demonstrates that the rates of technological capability-accumulation and operational performance improvement can be accelerated if deliberate and effective efforts are made to improve knowledge acquisition and knowledge conversion processes.

Indeed, these efforts are likely to generate significant financial benefits for the company that manages these processes effectively. The author is rigorous in his empirical analysis and adopts an original perspective by concentrating on latecomer firms within a non-industrialized country. The focus of analysis and the practical approach developed within the book will interest students and scholars of business, technology, innovation, and strategic management, as well as providing a source of reference and information for policymakers and managers in private and state-owned organizations.