A structural decomposition analysis of technological opportunity, corporate survival, and leadership

摘要

This article considers corporate technological leadership and survival in the face of changing technological opportunities over the period 1930–1990 for firms selected from three broad industrial groups. By using US patent data in a novel application of structural decomposition analysis, it considers the extent to which selected firms’ positions of technological leadership benefited from a favorable change in the structure of their technological environment relative to changes caused through firm-level choices.