How national institutions influence technology policies and firms’ knowledge-building strategies: A study of fuel cell innovation across industrialized countries

The central thesis advanced in this study is that firms’ knowledge-building strategies can be usefully explained by the variations in their national institutional contexts. Using an inductive approach, a study of fuel cell innovation across the U.S., France, Japan and Norway demonstrates how countries’ socio-political institutions – characterized by their levels of statism and corporatism – contribute to variations in technology policies pertaining to investment, collaboration, internationalization, and diversity. These technology policies are sources of advantages (and disadvantages) for firms, with implications for their knowledge-building strategies. The proposed theoretical framework is especially relevant in the context of industry emergence and R&D internationalization.