Impact Analysis of Economic Contributors on Knowledge Creation Activity by Using the Symmetric Decomposition Method

Recently, several studies using various methods for analysis have tried to evaluate factors affecting knowledge creation activity, but few analyses quantitatively account for the impact that economic determinants have on them. This paper introduces a non-parametric method to structurally analyze changes in information and communication technology (ICT) patenting trends as representative outcomes of knowledge creation activity with economic indicators. For this, the authors established a symmetric model that enables several economic contributors to be decomposed through the perspective of ICTs’ research and development (R&D) performance, industrial change, and overall manufacturing growth. Additionally, an empirical analysis of some countries from 2001 to 2009 was conducted through this model. This paper found that all countries except the United States experienced an increase of 10.5–267.4% in ICT patent applications, despite fluctuations in the time series. It is interesting that the changes in ICT patenting of each country generally have a negative relationship with the intensity of each country’s patent protection system. Positive determinants include ICT R&D productivity and overall manufacturing growth, while ICT industrial change is a negative determinant in almost all countries. This paper emphasizes that each country needs to design strategic plans for effective ICT innovation. In particular, ICT innovation activities need to be promoted by increasing ICT R&D investment and developing the ICT industry, since ICT R&D intensity and ICT industrial change generally have a low contribution to ICT patenting