Exploring the capital goods economy: complex product systems in the UK
By V. Acha, Andrew Davies, M. Hobday, Ammon J. Salter. 2004
126 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Over the past decade, qualitative empirical research at the firm, project and industry levels has improved our understanding of the characteristics and dynamics of innovation in the high technology, high value capital goods or ‘complex product systems’ (CoPS) which underpin modern industrial activity. This paper describes the development of a new industrial classification system for CoPS which is able to estimate quantitative shares of production and value added accounted for by CoPS at the economy level. It is also able to provide insights into the capital, information technology and skill intensity of CoPS, as well as employment contributions. As an example, the method is applied to one major industrial economy, namely the UK. Through a comparison of CoPS with non-CoPS industries, the paper identifies some of the key factors which explain the different patterns of innovation between the two types of industrial activity. Although preliminary, the analysis shows that CoPS-based industries together represent a distinctive class of industrial activity. Based on the classification system provided, further research is underway to examine cross-country comparisons in both production and trade performance, through time.
Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Strategy and Management
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d8c13cfc3e3e36b719787722e7d6f827c399ffbf
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In Economics and Econometrics
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Citations in the corpus
- Product complexity and economic development (2012, unknown): “Despite these potential problems, Acha et al. (2004) developed a method to classify CoPS based on the UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) data and on the UK Annual Business Inquiry. The first set of criteria used to determine whether a product qualifies as CoPS is its three main features: hi”
- Servitization and operations management: a service dominant-logic approach (2014, background): “In managing the inherent complexity of CoPS, Acha et al (2004) and Hobday (2000) refer to Woodward's (1965) project and small batch production designs.”