ELSEVIER J. Eng. Technol. Manage. 14 (1997) 129-145 -. ~- Journal of ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT JFT-M Technology communities and innovation communities Leonard H. Lynn * , John D. Aram, N. Mohan Reddy Weatherhead School qf Management, Case Western Rrserw University, Ckeland, OH 44106, USA Abstract The technology community framework provides new insights into how technologies and organizational systems co-evolve. Little has been written by the creators of this framework, however, about community-level variables. As a result, this literature has yet to provide a good basis for addressing many of the traditional concerns of researchers and policymakers about technological innovation: e.g. how various characteristics of communities influence the speed and extent to which an innovation is used. This paper presents an alternative framework for the study of the commercialization of technology, the ‘innovation community.’ An innovation community includes the organizations involved in the commercialization of a specific technology. It comprises a superstructure of coordinating organizations and a substructure of business firms providing inputs for the innovation. Research using this framework can address either how community attributes such as size or inclusiveness of superstructure impact on the development and use of new technologies or how the attributes of new technologies can influence community attributes. The framework seems particularly suitable as a basis for comparative research. 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. Keywords: Innovation communities; Technological innovation; Technology communities; Technology policy 1. Background Three bodiesof conceptual work have fed into the notion of technology communities. Organizational ecologists (e.g. Aldrich and Whetten, 198 1; McKelvey, 1982; McKelvey and Aldrich, 1983; Astley, 1985; Astley and Fombrun, 1987; Barnett and Carroll, 1987; DiMaggio, 1988; Brittain and Wholey, 1988; Freeman and Barley, 1989) have con- * Corresponding author. Tel: + 1-216-368-6048; e-mail: lhl@po.cwru.edu. 0923.4748/97/$15,00 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PII SO923-4748(97)00006-4