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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.

The goal of the article is to use the concepts of catching‐up and leapfrogging that are most often found in the literature on developmental economics to explore the process by which newcomers overturn an established market leader.

The article uses two case studies, one of the initial development of the transistor radio by the Japanese and the other of the development of electric vehicles in China, to illustrate the application of these concepts to concrete examples.

The way in which Sony caught up with, and jumped ahead of, American radio manufacturers is explained using the concepts of catching‐up and leapfrogging to emphasize the different phases in the process. This is contrasted with the development of electric vehicles in China which is a process that is still unfolding. The potential importance of one particular development, the low speed electric vehicle, is highlighted.

The concepts of catching‐up and leapfrogging provide a simple method to visualize the ways in which a newcomer might overtake an incumbent. Their application to the case studies also highlights the crucial importance of a sound business model in this process.

Although the case of Sony and the transistor radio is relatively well known, this article places it in a new conceptual framework. The case of the development of electric vehicles in general, and the example of the low speed electric vehicle in particular, is new and has not been widely explored.

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 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.

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 color TV industry in China has become a mature industry. Its development demonstrates and provides reference implications for how developing industries within a country can achieve a technological leap. This paper aims to address this issue.

An exploratory case study approach is taken to find the key factors in the technological catch‐up of China's traditional industry.

In the study it is found that China's color TV industry, as a mature traditional industry, has four‐dimensional key factors affecting the catch‐up of technology in the flat‐panel stage: market; merger and acquisition; international cooperation innovation for patent; and the roles of internal reform. “Market” is the window of opportunity and challenge; “merger and acquisition” is the key factor for making the patent convert from external mode to internal mode by deviant‐track. The “international cooperation innovation for patent” is also a key factor to ensure achievement of technology catch‐up and sustainable technological innovation. The role of internal reform promoter is the key factor in the technological catch‐up process in which taking entrepreneur as the core.

The article describes Changhong's flat‐panel TV technology catch‐up mode, analyzes four‐dimensional key factors affecting the technology catch‐up of China's color TV industry; the Chinese color TV industry as mature industry; and discusses which developments have demonstrated how to achieve a technological leap in developing industries.

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.

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.

This study aims to assess the technological capability of Chinese internet platforms (BAT: Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) compared to US ones (GAFA: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple). More specifically, this study explores Baidu’s technological catching-up process with Google by analyzing their patent textual information.

The authors retrieved 26,383 Google patents and 6,695 Baidu patents from PATSTAT 2019 Spring version. The collected patent documents were vectorized using the Word2Vec model first, and then K-means clustering was applied to visualize the technological space of two firms. Finally, novel indicators were proposed to capture the technological catching-up process between Baidu and Google.

The results show that Baidu follows a trend of US rather than Chinese technology which suggests Baidu is aggressively seeking to catch up with US players in the process of its technological development. At the same time, the impact index of Baidu patents increases over time, reflecting its upgrading of technological competitiveness.

This study proposed a new method to analyze technology mapping and evolution based on patent text information. As both US and China are crucial players in the internet industry, it is vital for policymakers in third countries to understand the technological capacity and competitiveness of both countries to develop strategic partnerships effectively.

To establish a comprehensive model of strategic management emphasized on the interactions of the organization with its external and internal environments and also to further develop a strategy based on competitive advantage.

By using key success factor and benchmarking methodologies as well as Multi‐Dimensional Space technique, the operational customer's needs fall into four strategic cells: “anchoring”, “narrowing”, “following‐up”, and “catching‐up”, which can be improved in accordance with strategic moves.

The empirical study examines Taipei International Airport (TPE) and undertakes a comparison with its six major competitors in Asia. It has been found that Singapore as well as Hong Kong international airports prevailed over other competitors in the overall performance and thus were selected as the benchmarking airports. While the TPE outperforms the benchmarking airports in the Core Functional Area, it lags well behind in the Support Area. It is therefore strongly suggested that the TPE should develop its ability to build up Key Success Factors as well as to benchmark efficiently and effectively if it is to secure competitive advantage over the benchmarking airports.

The quantitative and strategic management model we built could help organizational members to analyze corporation's current position, to reach more competitive strategies, and to evaluate/change strategies effectively.