Le développement inégal de la technologie des lasers industriels en France et en Allemagne - Quelques enseignements pour la politique technologique

摘要

According to economic theory, the technology policy of a country should be guided by the respect of both, the cumulative character of new technologies and the specific national innovation system. In this context, the present article compares French and German technology policies. The industrial laser technology is chosen as a comparative case study in order to highlight the different approaches in the two countries. Having identified the technology policies in the two countries, their respective successes are compared to what would be expected from theory. The relatively greater success of the industrial laser technology in Germany is in accordance with the theoretical conclusions as it goes hand in hand with a more « dynamic » technological system which is more adapted to the characteristics of this new technology. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the two countries dispose of different national innovation systems and it seems that the German success in this case is like-wise based on a better fit of the laser technology to a diffusion-oriented innovation system.