Evolution of the Knowledge Base in Knowledge Intensive Sectors

The paper develops an evolutionary framework to investigate and compare the dynamics of knowledge base across three knowledge intensive sectors, i.e. biotechnology, telecommunications and electronics. Knowledge is understood as collective good featured by a co-relational and a retrieval-interpretative structure. The internal structure of knowledge is described as a network the nodes of which are small units within traces of knowledge like patent documents, connected by links determined by their joint utilisation. We thus derived a number of properties like variety, coherence and cognitive distance, by using co-occurrence matrixes referring to the citation of technological classes within patent documents. Empirical results show the existence of interesting and meaningful differences across the sectors, which are linked to the different phases of lifecycles the industries have undergone in the period of observation.