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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 45, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 1998
Perspective of Technological Innovation
and Technology Management in China
Qingrui Xu, Senior Member, IEEE, Jin Chen, Member, IEEE, and Bin Guo
Abstract— This paper introduces the evolutionary process of
technological innovation and technology management in Chinese
enterprises since 1949. First, the transition of corporate man-
agement and technology management in China is introduced in
comparison to Western-style management. Then, based on the
historical description and case studies, the typical technology de-
velopment process, especially the processes of technological acqui-
sition, learning, and secondary innovation in Chinese enterprises,
is analyzed. The integration between technology acquisition and
in-house design and R&D is emphasized. The authors suggest
that “assimilation and self-design upon imported technology” (3-
I policy) is the suitable and vital technology development avenue
for most Chinese firms. To accomplish such a technological av-
enue, coordination, which exists between product innovation and
process innovation, corporate strategy and technology strategy,
and technology evolution and organizational change must be
organized well and dynamically. As Chinese firms face more
severe competition than ever, more attention should be paid
to the development of indigenous capabilities for technological
innovation. The firms’ innovation system (FIS), which emphasizes
the infrastructure support for a firms entrepreneurship, R&D
system, and organization, as well as high-talent personnel, should
be established or improved. Thus, technology strategy and the
technological innovation system are currently the two key issues
of management of technology (MOT) in China and will continue
to be into the coming century.
Index Terms— Chinese enterprises, technological innovation,
technology management.
I. INTRODUCTION
O VER the past decade, many researchers have drawn at-
tention to the historic development of management with
the expectation of finding important experiences to promote a
firm’s competitiveness and market performance [1], [2]. Many
studies and much literature have drawn upon the importance
of technological innovation for firms’ sustainable growth in
the ever-changing environment. An increasing number of
industrial case studies have highlighted the importance of tech-
nological innovation for industrial competitiveness [3]–[5].
As a result, more and more managers are realizing that the
management of technology and innovation is a key issue.
Modern Western-style management has had a long develop-
ment history since the late nineteenth century, which can be
divided into five stages.
1) Craft and Apprentice Management: This stage, which
entailed management by experience, occurred in the late
nineteenth century.
Manuscript received December 1995; revised July 1997. Review of this
manuscript was arranged by Guest Editors J. K. Liker and D. V. Gibson.
The authors are with the Research Center for Management Science and
Strategy, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027 China.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9391(98)08250-6.
0018–9391/98$10.00  1998 IEEE
381
2) Scientific Management (Circa 1900’s–1930’s): With
large-scale production, standardization is a dominant force
in manufacturing. Time and motion studies, work design, and
quality control played big roles in production and technology
management in the early twentieth century. China has also
experienced stages 1) and 2) from the beginning of this
century to the 1930’s and 1940’s.
3) Management Science (1940’s–1950’s): In this stage,
starting around the 1940’s before World War II, behavioral
science and management (i.e., operations research) played the
central role in management. After World War II (around
the 1950’s) marketing management became increasingly
important. Core management issues of technology at this
stage in Western countries were project management and
quality management.
During the 1940’s and 1950’s in China, major focuses in
management of technology (MOT) were on quality control
and management, process control and management, as well as
production engineering. It is worth pointing out that during this
stage there were some valuable and important innovations in
China in the management field. One was a participation mech-
anism, starting with the quality control movement in Qinghua
Machine Tool Company and then quickly spreading all over
China, known as “participation of workers in management.”
The other was the “three-in-one” system, i.e., the firm leader,
professionals (engineers), and workers got together during the
decision-making process to solve technical and managerial
problems in factories.
4) System Management (Circa Late 1960’s–1970’s) The
major changes in this stage were: 1) the widespread use of
system analysis and engineering approaches; 2) planning focus
turned to long-range planning, with corporate strategy playing
a big role for the firm; and 3) the participation mechanism
spread worldwide.
At this stage, along with the development of firm man-
agement, the major changes of MOT worldwide were: 1)
moving from quality control to quality cycle management, i.e.,
involving management’s participation; 2) moving from quality
management to total quality management, i.e., not only do the
technology and engineering departments take care of quality
management, but all departments of the firm manage the
product quality as well [1]; 3) moving project management’s
focus to large-scale project management (LSPM); and 4)
adding R&D management as a new discipline in technology
management.
During this stage, the major changes of MOT in China
were: 1) moving from quality management to total quality
management and 2) adapting some project management tech-
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382 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 45, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 1998
Fig. 1. Transition of dominant management function.
niques such as CPM and project evaluation review technique
(PERT) methods into MOT, which were also used in the
planning process of new product development and production
engineering.
5) Strategic Management (Mid 1980’s–Present): In this
stage, there were three major changes in MOT: 1) R&D
function turned to R&D and technological innovation
management [6], [7]; 2) strategic technology management
was getting more and more popular in large firms, especially
in high-tech firms [8]–[10]; and 3) even more importantly,
R&D management played its new role in MOT in China in
the 1980’s; in the 1990’s R&D management began to integrate
with innovation management.
Fig. 1 summarizes the transition of the dominant manage-
ment function discussed above. From the development history
described, it can be concluded that, as a rule of management,
the locus of change of management function in China is similar
to those of Western countries, and also that the core function
of MOT in Western countries and China occurred in a similar
manner as follows:
1) quality control in Western countries versus quality man-
agement in China (solving existing product quality prob-
lems); generally speaking, quality management becomes
an essential part of a firm’s management;
2) quality management in Western countries versus pro-
duction engineering in China (solving product diver-
sification problems); for China, process innovation is
a long-existing bottleneck that hinders the promotion
of production efficiency, so top managers pay much
attention to this issue;
3) production engineering in Western countries versus
R&D management in China (solving the technology
resource problem of new products); lately, many Chinese
firms are undergoing a transition from “pure producers”
to technology-based firms, so knowledge of R&D
management is more and more a concern of these firms;
4) R&D management in Western countries versus R&D
and technological innovation management in China (im-
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plementing technological innovation as a major source
of competitive advantage); under the market economy
condition, Chinese firms are facing more fierce com-
petition pressure; they find they can acquire competitive
advantage only by using technological innovation on the
base of marketing efforts;
5) technology management in Western countries versus
technological strategic management in China, i.e., MOT
comes to a strategic level in firms: instead of the tradi-
tional technology management function in business units
(BU’s), technology management is becoming a strategic
tool in gaining competitiveness; in doing this, the core
competency and indigenous innovation capability are
critical focuses.
II. WHICH INNOVATION PATTERN AND
PROCESS IS SUITABLE FOR CHINA?
Due to the differences in the political institutions, edu-
cation systems, and national resources endowments, as well
as technological infrastructures, the nature and pattern of
technological innovation in developing countries are very dif-
ferent from those in developed countries [11]. For developed
countries, innovation often results from basic research, applied
research, and experimental development, but for developing
countries in the Asia-Pacific Rim, including early Japan,
innovation often originates from imitation and improvement of
imported technology. Such an innovation pattern in Chinese
firms is called the “3-I pattern,” an acronym for imitation,
improvement, and innovation.
The first step in the “3-I pattern” is imitation. A typical
example of such a technology management pattern was Shang-
hai Machine Tool Works, a manufacturer of universal machine
tools. In 1953, universal machine tools saturated the market,
and new products were expected to be developed. After an
extensive and careful market survey and investigation around
the country, Shanghai Machine Tools Works decided to make
an effort in the R&D of precision plane machine tools. They
did not imitate the former Soviet Union’s product but tried
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XU et al.: TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
to imitate the precision gear machine tool products of a Swiss
firm. Finally, they were successful because they chose the right
imitation product locus. After this, Shanghai Machine Tool
Works produced new products for China’s industrialization and
modernization of agriculture with low cost and in less time.
The benefit of imitation upon imported technology is large
because low-level self-design and development cannot be
more competitive than higher level technology acquisition.
Technology capabilities in China were far lower than the state-
of-the-art of the advanced countries. By being aware of this,
China stressed technology acquisition since the 1980’s, and
the characteristics of this new technology path were: 1) heavy
investments for technology importation; 2) multidimensional
technology acquisition in both heavy industry and light indus-
try; and 3) technology acquisition with the strategic purpose
of import substitution and export promotion [12].
After the large-scale technology acquisition stage, China
turned its attention from imitation to improvement and inno-
vation for the following reasons.
1) As a learning process, imitation leads to technology
improvement and innovative workers (by leveraging
their capability and enlarging their knowledge base),
as the case of Shanghai Machine Tool Works revealed.
The R&D personnel at Shanghai Machine Tool Works
accumulated much technological knowledge, skill, and
experience, so the R&D personnel were able to improve
the feed box of the grinding machine successfully, with
components reduced from 47 to 17. The smaller but
more highly efficient components performed better, and
as a result, an oil leakage defect was solved.
2) R&D is the necessary step for transformative capacity
in moving from imitation to innovation. The ability
to maintain internally developed technology over time
is important for economic vitality. Such an ability is
called transformative capacity [13]. The key elements of
transformative capacity are: 1) the choice of technology,
including gathering information, choosing difficult-to-
create knowledge, identifying technologies for shelv-
ing, and developing criteria for evaluating technological
options, etc.; 2) the maintenance of a technological
knowledge base, including developing avenues for re-
searchers to share information, permitting underground
R&D activity, providing incentives for maintaining cur-
rently unwanted technologies, retaining key personnel
who possess tacit knowledge, etc.; 3) the reactivation
and synthesis of knowledge, including encouraging sci-
entists, technologists, and engineers to move around
among product groups and research labs, periodically
reviewing the catalog of shelved technologies, etc.
All of the above factors are dependent on R&D because
R&D provides more projects on the shelf and knowledge,
which form the basis for technology choice, maintenance,
reactivation, and synthesis.
In short, the imitation-improvement-innovation process can
be divided into the following stages:
1) acquisition stage: the main tasks are investigation and
feasibility;
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383
Fig. 2. Process and innovation in “3-I pattern.”
2) analysis and obtaining the embodied technology;
3) imitation stage: the key issue of this stage is to master
the operation of the technology;
4) adaptation stage: a localization process which makes
technology suitable to a firm’s environment;
5) improvement stage: high-level technological capacity to
be performed on imported technology at this stage;
6) generating stage: the critical event is the innovation of
products and processes which are state-of-the-art in the
world.
The key to implementing the “3-I pattern” is to select the
proper product innovation and process innovation locus. From
the classic theory of the innovation distribution pattern, process
innovation follows product innovation as described by Aber-
nathy and Utterback (A/U’ pattern) [14]; however, our research
of case studies showed a new innovation pattern: process inno-
vation is more important than product innovation at the early
stage, and then product innovation becomes more essential.
We call it the A/U’ pattern, or secondary innovation pattern
[15], [16] (see Fig. 2).
Several Chinese firms grasped this concept and developed
their technology by following the steps of the above-mentioned
five stages of innovation, with emphasis on process innovation
first. As a result, they spent less time and cost to keep abreast
of the state-of-the-art of advanced technology. Hangzhou
Oxygen-Making Machine Plant (HOMP) is a typical case.
They had developed five generations of air separators based on
technology acquired from the former Soviet Union and West
Germany. HOMP became successful at imitation, adaptation,
improvement, and generation and occupied most of the market
for large capacity air separators in China. Many original
licensed manufacturers found it difficult to enter China’s
market. We argue that the A/U’ Pattern is more suitable for
developing countries.
III. SELF-DESIGN: THE STEP FROM
CREATIVE IMITATION TO INNOVATION
Because imitation cannot always satisfy users’ needs with
their local situations and culture, especially in Chinese agricul-
ture modernization, self-development became important as the
core of technology development and MOT. With the effort of
self-development, China made great achievements in several
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384 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 45, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 1998
Fig. 3. The role of self-design in innovation: case of HOMP.
scientific research fields, e.g., the atomic bomb and rocket were
successfully developed and still remain strengths of R&D in
the world.
The experiences and lessons for self-development came
from three aspects. First, learning from self-development
makes more indigenous technology knowledge and techno-
logical capability accessible than learning from imitation only
[17]; second, having an open mind is the premise of self-
development; third, during the stage of self-development, the
parallel development approach (which is similar to concurrent
engineering) was used to speed up the innovation rate.
The MOT became more advanced than ever. But greatly
affected by political factors, the development of technology
management was hindered by the “shut-door policy,” which
hampered the acquisition of the state-of-the-art advanced
technology from all over the world.
In China, self-development can be divided into two stages:
the preliminary stage and the advanced stage. In the mid-
1950’s and 1960’s, most self-development was closely related
to imitation, and to a great extent it was a kind of adaptation.
Through acquisition and imitation, the product configuration
was improved to meet the needs, features, and culture of China.
The typical example is the self-development of agricultural
machinery. As the land, soil, and agriculture processes are so
different from the other countries, simply copying and imitat-
ing foreign technology results in wasted resources, including
energy, materials, and labor. Shifting from imitation to self-
development is a correct policy for efficient use of various
scare resources in China.
Self-development is an effective learning process for sci-
entists, engineers, and engineering managers. In the self-
development process, to improve the performance of a product
the industrial standards and parameters will often be changed,
for which R&D activities are needed to a certain extent. These
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force engineers to do the exploratory and experimental work,
and scientists to search for a new theory or model. These
also push the engineering managers to discover new organi-
zational structures to implement the new design. Thus, self-
development is an essential step toward imitation. It can also
be recognized as the assimilation process for creative imitation.
Fig. 3 is the historical description of the technological devel-
opment process in HOMP. It gives evidence of the important
role of self-design. We find that the product performance
leveraged a 20-year gap through two stages of self-design,
which was the largest leap since the evolution of the oxygen
generator during 30 years, from 1956 to 1986.
IV. INNOVATION PORTFOLIO: A NEW
TOPIC IN TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
Although people devote much attention to the innovative
activities in firms, executives often view the innovation process
as a static, linear one and often limit their strategic consid-
eration of technology innovation in an isolated and separate
way. As a matter of fact, the innovation process is a dynamic,
nonlinear, and systematic process [18]. In the development
process of a firm, technological innovations often happen in
clusters, and among them exist interaction and integration
relations, which make traditional innovation management too
simple and inappropriate in the long term.
As for firms in China, there still exists a dominant strategic
thinking that views innovation activities as static, linear,
and isolated, thus making technology strategy separate
from corporate strategy. Although many Chinese firms
invest considerable resources into R&D and innovation
activities, they often face the dilemma of low efficiency in
translating technology into profit.
In recent years, a new innovation management paradigm of
how firms’ innovative activities interact (which is essential to
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XU et al.: TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
Fig. 4. Typical patterns of technological and organizational innovation in Chinese firms.
Fig. 5. Matching pattern of technology strategy and business in firms.
the field of strategic innovation management) has begun to
emerge. Known as the “innovation portfolio” [19], it includes
the following aspects:
1) combining process innovation and product innovation,
which follows the A/U’ pattern as previously discussed;
2) combining technological innovation and organizational
innovation; the organizational innovation, the so-called
“organizational learning for technical change,” includes
both changes in R&D organization and changes in
firm organization; Fig. 4 shows the technological and
organizational innovation patterns based on the case
of Nanjing Panda Electronics Group and Hangzhou
Telecommunication Equipment Works;
3) integrating technology strategy with business strategy;
Fig. 5 shows the matching pattern of technology strategy
and business strategy in firms; in Chinese firms, the gen-
eral manager and general engineer are the key persons
linking technology strategy with business strategy.
V. TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
SYSTEM: A NEW PARADIGM OF MOT
In recent years, many studies and literature show that
the obstacles of innovation in China come not only from
the technology system per se, but also from environmental,
educational and economic systems [20], [21]. For Chinese
firms, the problems in technological innovation come mainly
from two factors.
1) The first is the operating mechanism of Chinese enter-
prises. Chinese firms often get less financial funding with
a higher burden of debt because of surplus workers’
welfare, so indigenous R&D is hard to carry out due to
the poor financial capability of firms.
2) The second is the human resource factor. In traditional
Chinese industries such as the textile industry, most of
the employees are peasant contract workers with limited
385
education. In high-tech industries, firms tend to import
foreign production facilities, causing less assimilation
and innovation, which leads to less enthusiasm for tal-
ented people to work for these industrial firms. Colleges
and universities have paid less attention to the urgent
demand for technology development in Chinese firms.
In order to overcome this harmful tendency in China, some
consideration and effort should be taken in the innovation
environment and infrastructure to form a systematic point
of view. As a matter of fact, researchers of technological
innovation have focused on innovation behavior of individual
firms for many years. For example, Schumpeter stressed the
role of the entrepreneur in innovation activities [22]. And
gradually, the relationship and coordination issues among firms
for innovation were also observed by some researchers, such
as the relations between suppliers and manufacturers and their
impact on a firm’s market performance [23], [24], the relations
between producers and users [25], as well as technology
information exchange among competitors [26]. As von Hippel
points out, when there is “sticky” information during the tech-
nological innovation process, cooperation between users and
innovators is needed to speed up the innovation process [25].
Therefore, a firm’s innovation effectiveness is considerably
determined by many complex factors such as government pol-
icy, industrial organization, intrapreneurship, entrepreneurship,
and so on. Then in the early 1980’s, the relations between the
government and firms involved in technological innovation
were further explored. These studies led to the concepts
of innovation policy [27] and a national innovation system
[28]–[30], [32].
In 1988, the Swedish economist Lundvall put forth the
concept of the National Innovation System (NIS) [28] to
remind people of the importance of infrastructure in techno-
logical innovation. And further, Freeman further developed
Lundvall’s idea and explained that the NIS is both a public
and private network for the absorption, improvement, and
diffusion of technological innovation [29]. Canadian scholar
Niosi defined NIS as the comprehensive efforts by firms,
universities and governmental departments for innovation [30].
The formulation and development of the concept of NIS
has had an important influence on the coordination among
R&D, education, and finance in China, and more and more
attention has been paid by many Chinese researchers [31]. As a
developing giant, China lacks enough resources to provide the
possibility for each firm to develop an indigenous innovation
pattern. With the growing Chinese economic reform, more
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386 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 45, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 1998
autonomy will be given to firms, thus various innovation
chances and internal and external conditions for innovation
will be grasped by a firm’s own effort. Therefore, compared
with NIS, the firms’ innovation system (FIS) is more important
for Chinese firms.
In general, studies on FIS should cover the following topics:
1) the infrastructure of FIS; 2) the characteristics of each
subsystem of FIS; 3) the correlation of each subsystem of
FIS; and 4) the dynamic change of FIS.
The infrastructure of FIS consists of the following:
1) Entrepreneurship: It is the soul of a firm’s technological
innovation. As the invention flow is directed out of a
firm, the entrepreneur can realize the importance of the
invention and put it into the market in a timely way.
During this process, entrepreneurship is needed.
2) R&D system: R&D is the basis of technological innova-
tion. As a result, a firm’s successful innovation requires
rational allocation of R&D strength and technological
resources, and coordination between internal R&D and
external R&D is also needed. Nowadays, more and more
firms are interested in the strategy of outsourcing R&D
strength.
3) Education and technical training: The aim of education
and training is to provide knowledge for innovators.
Without highly skilled R&D personnel, a firm is hardly
innovative. The external strength of technical training
is also needed, which means a firm should pay atten-
tion to personnel acquisition based on cooperation with
universities and institutes.
4) Cooperation with government: Currently, technological
innovation is an activity that takes place under certain
institutional, organizational and cultural environments;
many direct and indirect government activities are em-
bodied in the process of technological innovation. The
success of innovations in Japan and Germany showed
the importance of cooperation between firms and the
government.
In order to specify the importance of FIS and its implications,
a case study is made on EASTCOM, a leading manufacturer
in the Chinese telecommunication industry. EASTCOM de-
veloped from a repair mill into the famous manufacturer of
the portable wireless telephone in China. The firm’s capital
assets have increased 200 times since 1958. The success of
EASTCOM lies in the fact that the establishment of FIS was
placed at the core of the firm’s development. During this
process, entrepreneurship played an important role.
1) Risk-taking awareness: When the government prediction
for sales volume of the wireless telephone was only in
the thousands six years ago, the Executive Director of
EASTCOM tried to sign an agreement with Motorola
company to acquire advanced technology.
2) Never-ending awareness: When the sales of EASTCOM
reached two billion yuan, the director suggested that
annual sales would reach ten billion by the year 2000,
which would be equal to the total amount of sales
of Shanghai telecommunication sectors. This prediction
inspired continuous enthusiasm for further innovation.
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3) Commitment: The acquisition and improvement of ad-
vanced production technology will greatly change the
firm’s organization structure, culture, information, and
resource allocation mechanism. The entrepreneur should
make great efforts to deal with them. The Director of
EASTCOM put more effort into obtaining the franchise
for technology acquisition, reducing the tariff rate of
imported parts, getting approval for personnel training,
and raising a huge amount of currency. Without that
commitment, the acquisition and innovation could not
be realized.
EASTCOM concentrated on personnel acquisition and train-
ing, including: 1) putting forward Project 1221, which means
that by the year 2000, EASTCOM will acquire 10–20 technical
leaders, spend 200 million yuan in training fees, employ
2000 R&D personnel and spend 2 billion yuan on R&D,
and 2) acquiring highly skilled talent. To be successful at
acquisition and innovation, EASTCOM has put more effort
into acquiring college, master’s, and doctoral students. As a
result, the technical staff is 46.4% of the total staff.
EASTCOM has sent 131 people abroad for technical train-
ing, around 12.5% of the total R&D personnel. In the mean-
time, technical training for ordinary R&D personnel also has
been given much attention, and 3% of the sales was spent on
staff education and training in 1994.
Despite the lack of intrapreneur and R&D personnel, EAST-
COM tried to perfect its R&D system. First, they let more
R&D personnel enter the SBU of EASTCOM, with the aim of
integrating R&D, production, and marketing. In the meantime,
EASTCOM set up a technology center to carry out applied
basic research, and more than 33 million RMB yuan was spent
on it, as well as around 60 highly skilled R&D personnel
working for it. The R&D investment has also increased to
about 10% of the total annual sales.
Regarding the cooperation with government, because it
belongs to the Ministry of Postal and Telecommunication,
EASTCOM enjoys the large telecommunications market as
well as the users’ loyalty, both of which contribute to the
success of technological innovation.
So it could be concluded that establishing and perfecting
FIS is very important. In order to facilitate a firm’s innovation
activities, entrepreneurship and highly skilled R&D personnel
are needed first, followed by steady R&D input and effective
information exchange networks among R&D, marketing, and
manufacturing. Finally, government support is also essential
in providing a favorable external environment for industry
innovation.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper has introduced the evolutionary process of tech-
nological innovation and technology management in China
since 1949. Assimilation and improvement on imported tech-
nology is proven to be the suitable and vital technology
development avenue for most Chinese firms. In the current
development period of the socialist market economy, Chinese
firms face more intensive competition than ever, especially
competition pressures from advanced foreign firms. So in-
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XU et al.: TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
digenous technological innovation, which is based on building
technological capabilities, should be stressed. To realize this,
education reform and economic reform (especially the reform
of Chinese state enterprises) must take place to improve
the technological innovation system. Above all, innovation
strategy and firm innovation systems will become the two
important pillars of technology management in China today
and into the next century.
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Qingrui Xu (SM’89) received the B.A. degree in
industrial engineering from Shanghai Chaio-Tung
University and the M.S. degree in enterprise man-
agement from People’s University of China, Beijing.
He was the Visiting Scholar at Sloan School
of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology (MIT), Cambridge, and at the Department
of Industrial Engineering/Engineering Management
at Stanford University, Stanford, CA. He was the
Head and Chairman of the Industrial Engineering
Department of Zhejiang University and the Vis-
iting Fellow at Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is currently Professor
of Management at the School of Management and the Chairman of the
Research Center for Management Science and Strategy at Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou, China. He is also currently the Director and Chief Deputy of
Zhejiang Enterprise Management Association. He worked as a Member
of the Academic Evaluation Section of the Engineering Management in
State Council (1991–1997) and was the Director of the Academic Group
of Management Science, NSFC (1986–1992). He was the Deputy Chair of
the Directing Committee for Engineering Management Education of State
Education Commission (1984–1995). He is the author and co-author of 12
books and more than 200 articles in the area of management, industrial
engineering, economics, and R&D and technological innovation management.
He is the Editor Chief of the Chinese Journal of Industrial Engineering and
Management.
Prof. Xu is the Director of many societies, including CEMA, CSES,
CRSMS, and CMBMS. He is also the Director-General (Deputy) of the
Chinese Chapter of the International Society of System Dynamics.
Jin Chen (M’96) received the B.S. degree in chemi-
cal engineering and the Ph.D. degree in management
engineering from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou,
China, in 1989 and 1994, respectively.
He is an Associate Professor in the School of
Management and Senior Deputy Director of the In-
stitute of Management Science, Zhejiang University.
He was also the Visiting Scholar at Sloan School
of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy (MIT) in 1998. His research interests include
R&D and technological innovation management,
S&T strategy and policy, strategic management, education policy, and system
dynamics. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 papers.
Dr. Chen is also member of IAMOT and a committee member of the Chi-
nese Association of Science. He was the Co-editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings
of the Multinational Symposium on MOT in 1995.
Bin Guo received the B.S. degree in metal material
engineering and the Ph.D. degree in management
engineering from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou,
China, in 1993 and 1998, respectively.
His research interests cover R&D and technolog-
ical innovation management, strategic management,
merger and acquisition, and S&T strategy and pol-
icy. He has authored and co-authored more than 40
papers.