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This paper is the first to use the individual level, longitudinal catch-up growth of boys and girls in a historical population to measure their relative deprivation. The data is drawn from two government schools, the Marcella Street Home (MSH) in Boston, MA (1889–1898), and the Ashford School of the West London School District (1908–1917). The paper provides an extensive discussion of the two schools including the characteristics of the children, their representativeness, selection bias and the conditions in each school. It also provides a methodological introduction to measuring children’s longitudinal catch-up growth. After analysing the catch-up growth of boys and girls in the schools, it finds that there were no substantial differences between the catch-up growth by gender. Thus, these data suggest that there were not major health disparities between boys and girls in late-nineteenth-century America and early-twentieth-century Britain.

To answer the questions: what roles windows of opportunity act in the catchup process of latecomers, what strategies latecomer enterprises should adopt to size windows of opportunity to catch-up with incumbents even going beyond?

This paper studies the catch-up history of the Chinese mobile phone industry and proposes a sectoral innovation system under scenario of technology paradigm shifts. Then a history-friendly simulation model and counterfactual analysis are conducted to learn how different windows of opportunity and catch-up strategies influence the catch-up performance of latecomers.

Results show latecomers can catch up with technology ability by utilizing technology window and path-creating strategy. However, catching up with the market is not guaranteed. Demand window can help latecomers to catch up with market as it increases their survival rates, different sized windows benefit different strategies. However, it also enlarges incumbents' scale effect. Without technology window technology catch up is not guaranteed. Two windows have combination effects. Demand window affects the “degree” of change in survival rates, while the technology window affects the “speed” of change. Demand window provides security; technology window provides the possibility of a breakthrough for technology ability.

The findings of this paper provide theoretical guidance for latecomer enterprises to choose appropriate catch-up strategies to seize different opportunity windows.

This paper emphasizes the abrupt change of industrial innovation system caused by technology paradigm shifts, which makes up for the shortcomings of previous researches on industrial innovation system which either studied the influence of static factors or based on the influence of continuous changes.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development of high‐tech industry and the dynamics of technological learning, innovation, entrepreneurship in China through the telecom‐equipment industry.

The paper derives a number of research propositions from the literature and then uses four case studies to show how domestic firms narrow their technological gap in different stages of catch‐up and how these firms have been influenced by their innovation capabilities to catch up to the multinationals.

The major findings of the paper may be summarized as follows. First, the innovation capability and self‐developed technologies have been the key to leading domestic firms in catching‐up with the MNCs. Second, leading domestic firms mainly depend on in‐house R&D development, supplemented with external alliance to build their innovation capability. Third, there are two different catching‐up patterns in China's telecom‐equipment industry. One is “path‐following” catching‐up in global system for mobile communication driven by using new technology in low‐end market. The other is “leapfrogging” catching‐up in the development of phone digital switches and China's own 3G standard (time division – synchronous code division multiple access). However, it seems that the leapfrogging strategy will meet more challenges and problems than the path‐following strategy.

Based on the previous researches about technological learning, innovation and catch‐up in the newly industrializing economies, the paper provides a comprehensive elaboration in Chinese telecommunication industry by using case study approach in an original way.

Emerging-market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) can choose focused or ambidextrous strategies to catch up with global market leaders through overseas foreign direct investment (OFDI). The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by the Chinese government in 2013, had a profound impact on Chinese multinational enterprises’ international behavior. This paper analyses how EMNEs select focused or ambidextrous catch-up strategies before and after the BRI, integrating ambidexterity and catch-up theories to provide a more nuanced understanding of the evolution of EMNE strategy.

A case study is well suited for deriving rich descriptions of empirical phenomena for which little theory exists. Because the existing literature has not yet fully explored and conceptually modeled the influence of windows of opportunity on international catch-up strategies, we use qualitative research to explore the mechanisms of strategy evolution in EMNEs.

The results show that the choice of catch-up strategy is influenced by the nature of windows of opportunity and the firm's accumulated technological capability. Specifically, the opening of institutional windows as a result of the BRI could give significant momentum to the international catch-up process by providing incentives and opportunities for EMNEs to enter more markets and new technology fields. The EMNEs studied underwent a transition from a focused strategy in the catch-up stage to an ambidextrous strategy in the beyond catch-up stage.

These conclusions can not only deepen our understanding of the dynamics of catch-up strategies in the global context but also enrich the research on the ambidexterity of EMNEs, especially in the context of the BRI.

Catch-up is a process during which the countries that are behind the technological borders try to reduce their technological gaps. For a company or country in the catch-up process, a suitable level of technological capabilities and absorption capacity is necessary as a fixed advance requirement. This paper aims to develop a catch-up model of technology.

This study reviewed 90 published articles in the field of business management in Q1 and Q2 journals from the very beginning to the year of 2018 so that a framework can be presented for a catch-up. This framework has been obtained according to the process of grounded theory and by combining the previous studies.

Accordingly, a framework of six categories has been presented including causal factors, main category, background factors, intervening factors, strategies and consequences. Finally, three general approaches including independence, collaboration and cooperation, are introduced and each of these categories has been described in a spectrum of this approach.

This is the first study to conceptualize a catch-up model of technology by grounded theory.

This study aims to empirically examine the conditions for latecomers to successfully pursue path-creating catch-up strategies. In particular, the company is divided into two conditions: the external environment, which refers to the gap in the market share between the leaders and latecomers, and the internal capacities of the company, such as the company’s absorptive capacity, re-combinative capabilities and technological innovation leadership.

Because firms supported by the government tend to be conservative in their decision-making and technology development strategies, governmental assistance is likely to negatively affect path-creating catch-up strategies. This study surveyed small to medium enterprises in the Korea IT industry and analyzed the latecomers’ catch-up strategies from internal and external environment perspectives.

After ensuring its innovation capacity by developing of internal capacity, it turned out to lead to path-creative catch-up strategy and market disparity and government dependence moderates this relation. While market disparity has a positive moderation effect, government dependence showed a negative moderation effect.

The authors proposed and tested hypotheses of how a firm’s path-creative catch-up strategy is adopted and succeeds. Regarding the internal conditions, the authors statistically proved that absorptive capabilities, re-combinative capabilities and technology innovation leadership are important factors for a firm’s technology innovation capacity.

Following the catching‐up hypothesis and using new published provincial data, this paper examines Chinese regional productivity growth by way of catch‐up in the reform period. It provides a general catch‐up measurement and a special assessment for regional development “trickle‐down” effects. Number of measurements include regional productivity averages, indices, growth rates, absolute increments, the coefficients of variation, rank correlation coefficients, and so on. The study indicates that the strength of Chinese catch‐up varied from time to time with weakened potentiality and the regional development spreading effects from coastal area to interior provinces have been limited so far. The review of social capabilities indicates that their different degrees of development acted to limit the strength of technological potentiality in the interior areas, though such changes on their surface did not exhibit the uniformly self‐limiting character for different regions. Furthermore, the pace of realization of the potentiality for catch‐up was affected by a number of factors that govern the diffusion of knowledge, the mobility of resources and the rate of investment.

This paper aims to investigate the pattern of technological capability building in the gas turbine industry as a complex product system (CoPS) in an Iranian gas turbine producer named Oil Turbo Compressor Company (OTC) and to recognize multi-level (firm, industry and national) drivers influencing technological catching up in this company.

This paper used a qualitative approach and case study research strategy. A preliminary theoretical framework is proposed based on research background. Also, the data were collected from various sources, including the interview with 11 experts, studying many documents and participating in some relevant meetings and conventions. To analyze the data, the authors relied on their preliminary theoretical framework and applied the chronological sequence analysis technique.

Our findings show that, first, in contrast with mass-produced industries where capability building pattern often leads to product innovation, technological capabilities in OTC have evolved from assembling to manufacturing, upgrading and finally redesigning of existing models of gas turbines. Second, two firm-level (proper technology acquisition strategies and building organizational and managerial capabilities), two industry-level (networking, integration and collaboration among key actors and existence of local market and demand) and two national-level (government’s policies, supports and initiatives and institutional arrangement and political conditions) drivers have played indispensable roles in facilitating and accelerating technological catching up by OTC.

Inevitably, the current research faces a few limitations. For instance, the difficulty of generalization is considered an inherent problem because it is a case study of only one Iranian latecomer company, as well as only one CoPS industry. Regarding implications, the findings suggest that technological catching up in CoPS industries in developing countries is not a simple and autonomous process and is influenced by multi-level factors, including national-, industry- and firm-level drivers.

In terms of theory, this paper tends to investigate and explain the catching-up process in OTC as an Iranian gas turbine producer by applying a multi-level theoretical framework that consists of firm-, industry- and national-level drivers. In terms of practice, this paper aims at investigating drivers affecting the catching-up process in a CoPS industry in a developing country that was faced with vast international sanctions, while many other studies in this area examined cases from developing countries such as Korea and China that had the opportunity of enjoying international collaborations and overseas knowledge flows.

This study aims to investigate the historical technological catch-up processes with particular attention to the role of windows of opportunity (WoO). As Industry 4.0 becomes the benchmark of many latecomer countries, this paper may provide guidelines to both policymakers and business practitioners. For clarifying how to catch up with the incumbents and leaders, the authors summarize the lessons based on the historical observations to conclude the pathways for latecomers who aim to reduce the gaps to leaders and manage catch-up. This study enriches the literature of catch-up from a holistic view with fresh insights into how and where to catch up.

The authors analyze the technological catch-up processes emerged in advanced industrial powers, newly industrialized countries (NICs) and emerging economies (EEs). By categorizing the countries into three kinds, they summarize the processes of catch-up along with the industry evolutions. Moreover, they explore how WoO may facilitate the catch-up processes from one stage to the next in above-mentioned categories. Doing so helps to further examine how technological catch-up and WoO interplay and differ among countries. Then, the authors further investigate the latecomers and incumbents and conclude the target choosing, path setting and direction selecting when implementing a catch-up strategy.

This study shows that technological catch-up emerged first in advanced industrial powers (AIPs), then in NICs and recently in EEs. Technological catch-up processes in AIPs and NICs take longer time than those in EEs. WoO from policy, market and technology usually collaboratively facilitate the technological catch-up processes in AIPs and NICs. However, in EEs, single WoO can lead to a successful catch-up. The authors further summarize the directions and pathways of catch-up: AIPs and NICs are normally considered by some latecomers to catch up with, while EEs are not.

This study is among the first to systematically review the historical developments of industry evolutions by focusing the technological catch-up based on the different categories of countries: AIPs, NICs and EEs. Moreover, the authors are also among the first few integrating the WoO and technological catch-up processes in different kinds of countries. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, they are also one of the pioneers who highlight the directions and pathways of latecomers and target choosing to catch up with. They also explore the possibility of selecting EEs as catch-up targets.

An alliance portfolio can help latecomer firms to acquire the necessary knowledge and resources to catch up with market leaders. However, how latecomer firms construct an alliance portfolio in terms of the nature of windows of opportunity has not been fully analyzed. This paper aims to explore how latecomer firms can build appropriate coalitions according to the nature of the window of opportunity to achieve technological catch-up in different catch-up phases.

Based on a longitudinal case study from 1984 to 2018 of Sunny Group, now a leading manufacturer of integrated optical components and products, this paper explores the process of technological catch-up of latecomer firms building different types of alliance portfolio in different windows of opportunity.

This paper finds that there is a sequence when latecomers build an alliance portfolio in the process of catch-up. When the uncertainty of opportunity increases, the governance mechanism of the alliance portfolio will change from contractual to equity-based. Also, latecomer firms build market-dominated and technology-dominated alliance portfolios to overcome their market and technology disadvantages, respectively.

These conclusions not only enrich the theory of latecomer catch-up from the perspective of windows of opportunity but also expand research on alliance portfolio processes from a temporal perspective.