Assessing Technological Capability: Design and uses of an audit tool

Toolkits for assisting innovation managers have been a regular and accepted contributor to organisational development programmes for many years. Less readily available are equivalent tools and techniques that can be used to assist academic researchers interested in assessing the extent to which firms have reached different levels of technological capabilities or, even more importantly, by policy-makers themselves. This paper describes a data collection vehicle that aims to contribute to all three spheres – individual organizational development, academic research and policy-making. It is designed to identify a firm’s strengths and weaknesses in the development of their technological capabilities and to categorise a firm based upon their awareness of the threats and opportunities posed by technology and the degree to which the firm is prepared and able to change in practice. The tool can, however, also be used to collect data that should be relevant to policy-makers with responsibilities for regional or sectoral industrial development. The paper looks at some aspects of the innovation policy field in which it is hoped the tool can make a contribution, the approach incorporated into the design of the tool to identify technological capabilities and our categorisation of firms in relationship to this model.