Technology Policy and Cooperation a Paradigmatic Approach

The main objective of the paper is to provide an analytical framework based on evolutionary arguments, explaining the role and rationale of technology policies based on inter-organisation cooperations. We try to combine different arguments developped in the literature in order to define a coherent approach of technology policies : organisational, failure and paradigmatic approaches. We will argue that the role of technological policies and their design are contingent on whether knowledge creation emerges in an existing technological paradigm or will be at the origin of a new one. In the first part of the paper, we will define two broad kinds of cooperative policy : one (pre-paradigmatic) devoted to create radically new knowledge by exploring new avenues in order to initiate a new technological paradigm and the other (paradigmatic) devoted to create new knowledge by using exploitation mechanisms in order to maintain technological options and variety, inducing innovation and reducing negative lock-in effects. We specify also for each situation the kind of intervention (coordination, institutional structure) compatible with the objective of the policy. In the second part of the paper, we will illustrate our theoretical arguments by focusing on two types of cooperative programme : one devoted to create a new knowledge base in a pre-paradigmatic phase (the development of a digital switching system in France) and the other more devoted to foster knowledge in existing paradigms (the case of Brite-Euram).