Investigating the dynamics of interdisciplinary evolution in technology developments

•This paper provides a new framework to measure interdisciplinarity.•The framework is based on IPC classification and patent citations.•A two-step approach employed to analyze the trends and effects.•The evolutionary trends of interdisciplinary inventions observed.•Interdisciplinary variables found to positively influence inventions.

In a global economy where technology plays a vital role, technology fusion is important for developing designs of outstanding innovations. These designs often involve the transfer of knowledge between different technological industries, a term known as “interdisciplinarity.” This paper aims to contribute to the literature on interdisciplinary innovation by using a novel methodological approach to explore how conventional technologies have evolved into interdisciplinary technologies in different industries. The new methodological approach was based on patent citation analysis and negative binomial regressions conducted to: 1) observe the dynamics and evolution of interdisciplinary technologies, and 2) explore how interdisciplinary knowledge influences technology developments. The study found that interdisciplinary knowledge plays a significant role in the development of valuable technologies in all investigated industries. An important managerial implication from this is that firms should consider developing interdisciplinary technologies whenever possible.