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6.1 DEFINING TECHNOLOGY Schmookler (1966: vii) defines technology as ‘the social pool of knowledge of the industrial arts. Any piece of technological knowledge available to someone anywhere is included in this pool by definition’ and inventions are ‘the “bits” that are added to the existing stock of knowledge’.1 Delmas (1999: 638), referring to Loveridge (1990) and Burgelman and Rosenbloom (1989), defines technology as a ‘set of competencies. It is the practical knowledge, know-how, skills, and artifacts that can be used to develop a product / service and / or production / delivery system. Technologies can be embodied in people, materials, cognitive and physical processes, plant, equipment, and tools. Key elements of technology may be implicit, existing only in an embedded form (like trade secrets based on knowhow) and may have a large tacit component’. Drawing on the knowledge or the resourcebased view of the firm, Granstrand (2000a: 548) defines technology in the context of the technology-based theory of the firm as a ‘body of knowledge about techniques and technical relationships, typically regarding ways to transform material matter to achieve more desirable physical effects. The body of knowledge referred to may be more or less specialized’. Following the definition proposed by Tschirky and Koruna (1998: 227), Hentschel (2007: 5), Escher (2005: 17), and Birkenmeier (2003: 17) state that ‘technologies enclose specific and collective knowledge in explicit and implicit forms for product and process-oriented usage based on natural, social and engineering-scientific knowledge’.2 OECD (2007: 780) defines technology rather generically as ‘the state...