Raising standards: innovation and the emerging global standardization environment for ICTs

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between technical standardization and innovation in the ICT sector. In many ways, this exercise involves revisiting the themes or sub-themes of much work already done in this growing area. In others, it involves linking the dominantly economics standards-oriented literature with systems-oriented innovation-studies and other cross-disciplinary approaches. Our objective here is to review some of this literature and, hopefully, provide a synthesis that advances our appreciation of standardization's role in the innovation process. This is an important exercise as a sure-footed understanding of the fundamental relationship allows one to appreciate the effects and implications of the standardization process within the changing environment, especially, implications for user-participation