• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.833-844
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• 2023

As technology convergence is recognized as a driver of innovation, the identification of technology convergence opportunities is critical to expanding a firm's technology portfolio. Recently, wearable technology has emerged as an important factor in creating new business opportunities and providing technology investment alternatives for firms in the era of Industry 4.0. Against this background, this study provides a new patent analysis framework for identifying and proposing technology convergence opportunities in the wearable field. Using 8,621 patents filed between 2011 and 2021, a case study was conducted to identify technological convergence opportunities by applying Word2Vec algorithm. The analysis framework can be divided into four stages, with the final stage recommending potential technology convergence opportunities for a specific candidate firm's technology area by calculating similarities between technology codes. This study aims to better understand the current status of wearable technology development as well as to propose a new methodology for capturing technology convergence opportunities in the wearable industry. The case study result suggests that the convergence of healthcare and ICT may provide new development opportunities. Furthermore, the results are expected to provide alternative perspectives on the development of new markets and technologies using wearable technology and can support the strategic decision-making on future technology planning in the wearable field.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.65-96
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• 2014

To have global competitiveness in newly growing industry, good quality R&D's in convergence technology arerequired. Korean government also started to emphasize the importance of convergence technology as a new engine of growth for the future development. Since 2008, worldwide energy crisis and concerns on low carbon green growth made people focus on the convergence between information technology (IT) and energy technology (ET). However, the R&D performance comparison among the convergence technologies is not well explored so far. Therefore, this study uses Korea's patent citation database to measure the R&D performance of convergence technologies. We adopt technology development cycle, technology spillover analysis, and technology diffusion analysis to see the knowledge flow from R&D industry to others. We find that IT_ET convergence technology generally shows higher R&D performance than other convergence technologies. Contrary to public belief, convergence R&D by big companies has relatively low performance especially measures in technology spillover and technology diffusion. This implies that they might concentrate on delicate Fuel Cell Energy/Environment Technology (FEIT) or Nano Environment/Energy Information Technology (NEIT) rather than general energy information technologies. We also find that Korea's chemical industry may play a crucial role for the growth of other convergence technologies.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2016

Recently, the emergence of smartphone foster the technological convergence. This convergence no longer takes place within technologies only. Rather, convergence phenomena happen as a form of embodied services. However, previous research on convergence has been subject to the technology-oriented studies, including suggesting patent-based indexes or analyzing technological characteristics. However, investigating technology-service convergence is critical since most of new smart services are technology-based convergence services. Therefore, we analyze the pattern of technology-service convergence which occurs in the smartphone application services. We divided the smatphone application services into four categories, and employ a network analysis to represent the convergence phenomena of each category. Our study is expected to provide meaningful implication in new service development practice.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.592-612
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• 2008

The convergence of technology as a major breakthrough in technology innovation has been generated and developed. With the advent of the 21st century characterized by the knowledge-based economy, it is happening even more frequently and vigorously than ever. However, study on classification system or definition of notions is necessary as the convergence of technology is still in the early stage. The existing classification system has limited application to the convergence of technology. With no standard available for the classification of the technology convergence, there has been much concern for duplicative R&D investment. On this ground, a new and reformed classification system for the convergence of technology and definition of notions are needed. Previous studies regard base technologies used in the technology convergence and new convergence technologies as important. However, this paper views convergence of technology as a dynamic phenomenon and puts an emphasis on the cause of technology convergence, not on the new technology itself and examines whether base technologies go back to their original state after the completion of technology convergence. This kind of approach will classify technology convergence by characteristics. Although more researches including quantitative analysis are necessary, this paper expects to offer help with further researches on classification system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.156-169
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• 2016

The objective of this study is to investigate patent trends of Daegu city which tries to introduce environment friendly energy and to develop new technology or new industry sprung from technology convergence on smart decentralized energy technology and other technologies. After applying network analysis to corresponding groups of technology or industry convergence, strategy for future energy convergence industry is provided. Patent data applied in Daegu city area are used to obtain research goal. The technology which contains several IPC codes (IPC Co-occurrence) is considered as a convergence technology. Path finder network analysis is used for visualizing and grouping by using IPC codes. The analysis results categorized 13 groups in energy convergence industry and reclassified them into 3 cluster groups (Smart Energy Product Production Technology Group, Smart Energy Convergence Supply Technology Group, Smart Energy Indirect Application Technology Group) considering the technical characteristics and policy direction. Also, energy industry has evolved rapidly by technological convergence with other industries. Especially, it has been converged with IT industry, and there is a trend that energy industry will be converged with service industry and manufacturing industry such as textile, automobile parts, mechanics, and logistics by employing infrastructure as well as network. Based on the research results on core patent technology, convergence technology and inter-industry analysis, the direction of core technology research and development as well as evolution on decentralized energy industry is identified. By using research design and methodology in this study, the trend of convergence technology is investigated based on objective data (patent data). Above all, we can easily confirm the core technology in the local industry by analyzing the industrial competitiveness in the macro level. Based on this, we can identify convergence industry and technology by performing the technological convergence analysis in the micro level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.88-95
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• 2017

As the safety fields are expanding to a variety of industrial fields, safety technology has been developed by convergence between industrial safety fields such as mechanics, ergonomics, electronics, chemistry, construction, and information science. As the technology convergence is facilitating recently advanced safety technology, it is important to explore the trends of safety technology for understanding which industrial technologies have been integrated thus far. For studying the trends of technology, the patent is considered one of the useful sources that has provided the ample information of new technology. The patent has been also used to identify the patterns of technology convergence through various quantitative methods. In this respect, this study aims to identify the convergence patterns and fields of safety technology using association rule mining(ARM)-based patent co-classification(co-class) analysis. The patent co-class data is especially useful for constructing convergence network between technological fields. Through linkages between technological fields, the core and hub classes of convergence network are explored to provide insight into the fields of safety technology. As the representative method for analyzing patent co-class network, the ARM is used to find the likelihood of co-occurrence of patent classes and the ARM network is presented to visualize the convergence network of safety technology. As a result, we find three major convergence fields of safety technology: working safety, medical safety, and vehicle safety.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.83-95
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• 2022

A technology can be newly formed through technological convergence achieved by the intersection of two or more technological fields. As the complexity of technology development increases, related interest is increasing. Researches have been carried out on the concept, related indicators and analysis of technology convergence including method of social networks. This paper intends to suggest an analysis method of technology convergence using social networks based on the company's possessing technologies. According to the similarity of technologies among companies, a social network was constructed and the technology convergence was analyzed using k-core, a social network subgroup method. Using the result of k-core, base and element technologies for convergence was identified with their relations. Using the suggested method, technology convergence was analyzed on real technology data of defense-industry companies. When the minimum technology similarity is 0, the overall technology convergence relations between technology elements can be identified. In the scope of data in this paper, technologies of defense S/W, aircraft structure and structural materials are identified as important base technology for convergence.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.231-240
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• 2016

As the limitation of the existing convergence is pointed out, technology-humanities convergence which highlights the enhancement of the quality of life of humans, is focused as a solution to facilitate sustainable technological innovation. Technology-humanities convergence has already occurred in various industries, of which a considerable number of successful cases can be noted. However, few efforts have been made to investigate technologyhumanities convergence as an independent academic field. Therefore, this paper aimed to identify the status of technology-humanities convergence. To do this, first, a definition of technology-humanities convergence was proposed. Second, based on Maslow's theory, the types of human needs and related key words were extracted. Third, patents related to human needs were collected from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (2000~2014). Fourth and last, the status of technology-humanities convergence was analyzed in terms of "convergence trends" and "convergence areas." This research is expected to promote more creative and human-centered performances of innovation as well as to support decision-making when the innovation strategy-as attempted by the quantitative analysis of technology-humanities convergence in the perspective of sustainable competitiveness-is established.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.467-479
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• 2017

This study examines how the characteristics of cooperative research and development (R&D) projects in the public domain impact information and communication technology (ICT) convergence. Based on the analysis of 416 cooperative R&D projects under the ICT-based industry convergence R&D program in Korea, the study finds that the characteristics of cooperative R&D projects significantly impact ICT convergence. Moreover, the participation of public research institutes and universities is critical for ICT convergence compared with that of firms. However, in firm-to-firm cooperation, the participation of small and medium enterprises contributes to cross-sectional convergence, while the participation of large firms leads to overall and longitudinal convergence. R&D inputs such as the number of partners and government subsidies exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship (negative quadratic effect) with technology convergence. Project duration and homogeneous partners are also critical factors for ICT convergence. The results indicate several implications and guidelines on how to effectively organize cooperative R&D projects to facilitate technology convergence.

• Carbon letters
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• v.22
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• pp.101-104
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• 2017