Quantifying The Resilience of Industry Innovation Ecosystems: The Impact of Manufacturing Offshore on Firm Technology Trajectories and the Institutional Locus of Innovation

今天的政府政策针对的是企业，而不是企业的生态系统。鉴于过去20年来企业活动的日益分散和这些企业在技术上的相互依赖性增加，这种决策模式可能已经过时。本研究利用融合电信和计算行业的自然实验来检验移除一批关键创新企业对创新生态系统的影响。根据研究结果，研究人员试图定义创新生态系统的特征，这些特征可以提供抵御未来冲击的弹性。尽管进行了广泛的研究，但学术界、工业界或政策界对将公司活动转移到海外对美国创新的影响几乎没有达成一致。P.I.之前的工作表明，将制造业转移到海外会改变技术开发激励机制。具体来说，她的研究结果表明，当美国公司将生产从美国转移到东亚发展中国家时，在美国开发的最先进技术就不再有回报了。国外的生产特点不同，较早的技术在发展中国家的环境中可能更具成本效益。在这些结果的基础上，本项目试图了解离岸制造对以下方面的影响：(1)将制造转移到海外的公司的创新活动，以及(2)在美国相同或其他机构内先进技术的持续进步。研究结果表明，将生产转移到海外的公司是否遵循了与仍在美国生产的公司不同的技术轨迹。在研究的第二部分中，研究结果揭示了在研究生态系统的情况下，将生产转移到海外是否改变了创新的制度轨迹。更广泛的影响：近年来，人们越来越担心美国在全球经济中保持竞争力的能力。了解创新生态系统对一系列创新公司将活动转移到海外的反应，对于重新定义美国的科学和创新政策以及提高此类系统的弹性至关重要。这项研究的结果揭示了机构位置对创新数量和方向的重要性——小公司、大公司、大学或政府实验室。利用这些结果，该项目描述了创新生态系统的关键指标，这些指标可能有助于其抵御冲击的弹性，例如大量创新公司将制造业转移到海外。指标可能包括生产地点和创新产出之间的耦合强度、制度流动性、企业-大学专利-出版物的相互依赖以及从研究结果中出现的其他指标。政策制定者可以立即使用这些指标来评估生态系统的弹性，并使学者能够在未来的工作中建立工业生态系统的特征。最后，研究的特定技术——光电子学——对通信、计算和传感的进步至关重要。了解继续光电子技术发展的政策杠杆可能对美国的经济和军事领导至关重要。

Government policy today targets firms rather than firm ecosystems. Given the increased fragmentation of firm activities and increased technological interdependency of these firms over the past 20 years, this mode of policy-making may be outdated. This research leverages a natural experiment in the converging telecommunications and computing industry to examine the impact on the innovation ecosystem of removing a critical set of innovating firms. Drawing on the results, the researchers seek to define characteristics of innovation ecosystems that could provide resiliency against future shocks.Despite extensive study, there is little agreement within the academic, industrial, or policy communities on the impact of moving firm activities offshore on innovation back in the U.S. Previous work by the P.I. has shown that moving manufacturing offshore changes technology development incentives. Specifically, her results show that when U.S. firms shift production from the U.S. to developing East Asia, the most advanced technologies that were developed in the U.S. no longer pay. Production characteristics are different abroad, and earlier technologies can be more cost-effective in developing country environment. Building on these results, this project seeks to understand the impact of manufacturing offshore on (1) the innovative activities of the firms that moved manufacturing offshore, and (2) the continued advance of the advanced technologies within the same or other institutions in the U.S. In the case of the first part of the study, the results demonstrate whether firms which relocated manufacturing offshore are following a different technology trajectory from those firms still manufacturing in the U.S. In the case of the second part of the study, the results shed insight into whether the relocation of manufacturing offshore has, in the case of the ecosystem of study, shifted the institutional locus of innovation. Broader Impact: In recent years, there has been rising concern over the ability of the U.S. to remain competitive in the global economy. Understanding how innovation ecosystems react to a set of innovating firms moving activities offshore is critical to redefining U.S. science and innovation policy and to improving the resiliency of such systems. The results of this study shed insights into the significance of institutional location -- small versus large firms, universities, or government labs -- on the quantity and direction of innovation. Leveraging these results, the project characterizes critical metrics of innovation ecosystems that may aid in their resiliency against shocks such as a large set of innovating firms moving manufacturing offshore. Metrics may include such units as coupling intensity between manufacturing location and innovative output, institutional fluidity, firm-university patent-publication interdependency, and other metrics that emerge from the result of the study. These metrics can be used immediately by policy-makers to assess ecosystem resiliency, and will enable academics to build on them in future work characterizing industry ecosystems. Finally, the particular technology of study -- optoelectronics -- is critical to advance in communications, computing, and sensing. Understanding the policy levers to continue technology development in optoelectronics may be essential to U.S. economic and military leadership.