A Study on Dynamic Patterns of Technology Convergence with IPC Co-Occurrence-Based Analysis: The Case of 3D Printing

Sustainability

Zifeng Chen¹  Xuming Lou¹  Ying Tang¹  Chengjin Zhang² 

[1] School of Economics and Management, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an 710061, China;School of Modern Post, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an 710061, China;

关键词: technology convergence;    association rules;    information entropy;    network analysis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su12072655

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Technology convergence has become a typical characteristic of innovation, which affects the evolution of industrial structures and the core competitiveness of organizations. However, the existing research has mainly focused on the development of core areas of convergence, ignoring the potential breakthroughs that emerging peripheral convergence may bring. Therefore, this research put forward a comprehensive methodology based on IPC (International Patent Classification) co-occurrence analysis to study the dynamic patterns of technology convergence from the perspectives of reinforcing convergence and novel convergence. For the former, convergence trends in each period were explored by using association rules, and the convergence degree was measured based on the number of patents containing different IPC codes. Then, the corresponding core technical fields were identified by using information entropy. For the latter, a community detection algorithm based on IPC co-occurrence network was adopted to investigate the convergence trend by period, and important technology fields were identified by the centrality indicators. The methodology proposed in this study is beneficial for firms to seize technological opportunities in technology convergence.

【 授权许可】

Unknown