The influence of the knowledge base of different actor types upon the technological expectations of technological development - A quantitative research applied for the Dutch photovoltaic sector

Abstract

The aim of this research is to empirically examine the relationship between the knowledge base of actors and the technological expectations of future subsidized projects. Including the notion that different actor types possess different knowledge bases, this research uses three actor types as an interaction term for the knowledge base and its influence upon the future expectations. These three actor types are Knowledge Institutes (KIs), Large Enterprises (LEs) and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). With insights from the evolutionary and organizational theory, we hypothesised that the basic and applied knowledge bases of different actor types are positively related to the technological expectations of future subsidized projects. The basic knowledge base was measured through the keywords of scientific articles. The applied knowledge base was measured by the keywords of patents. The technological expectations were measured by the keywords of the project applications of actors. The hypotheses are tested using the PV technology as case study. The results show that the knowledge bases of actors are negatively related with the technological expectations of future subsidized projects. Furthermore, the basic knowledge base and the applied knowledge base of KIs are dominant in expectation forming compared to LEs. For SMEs, the results show that scientific publications and patents have not a significant influence on the expectation forming in future subsidized projects.