ICES Workshop 2011
Standard and Innovation:
Management and Policy
Dr. Jin CHEN
Qiushi Distinguished Professor of Innovation Management,
College of Public Administration,
Zhejiang University, China
June 27th , 2011
Standard and Innovation
Managing the creation process of standard:
Case of Supcon
Policy suggestions
Standard War for Innovation Leader
 Far from being a barrier to innovation, standards can be an
important driver.
 Standards give innovators a level playing field, allowing
solutions from different suppliers to work together (known as
“interoperability”) and competition between new and existing
products, services and processes.
 They also help diffuse knowledge and encourage technology
to be applied in new ways, which may trigger innovation.
 Standards provide legal security for innovative companies,
creating large-scale markets and building confidence among
consumers.

www.europe-innova.eu/archive/standardsnetworks
To promote innovation is a key issue at
political, economical and professional levels.
Standardization can play an important role in
support of innovation management, as it plays
for safety, quality, environment and
interoperability.

www.innovationmanagement.se
New Audi A6: setting standard in innovation
With its light body, sporty chassis and a wide
array of new assistance and multimedia
systems, the full-sized sedan is packed with
innovative solutions in every area of
technology.
MacDonald, KFC, Starbucks, UPS,
Disneyland, Hollywood…
China’s catch-up from Made in China to
Invented in China
China aims to the moderate innovative
country by the year of 2020.
Branding!
中国最有价值品牌排行
中国十大世界级品牌
首批中国的世界名牌
NO.001
亿元
800
702
Haier 亿元
700
1、Haier 海尔
600
红塔山
500
400
一汽
NO.002
300
200
长虹
100
0
95
99
02
03
04
海尔连续五年蝉联“中国最有
价值品牌”冠军。2006年，海
尔品牌价值高达749亿元。
05
2005年8月30日，世界著名媒
体－－英国《金融时报》公布
了“中国十大世界级品牌”调
查结果，海尔荣居榜首。
国家质检总局评选公布首批
三个中国世界名牌，海尔包
揽前两名。
From patent competition to standard
competition: 86 national standards and 3
international standards
Global standard
Country standard
 Network electrical home
appliances
The water
heater of
Haier
defends
electric wall
technology
 The house integrating
 The performance of the ultra-low
temperature freezer and method of
testing
 Portable fridge
6
U-home by Haier
数字化家电一定会改变我们
的生活……
CIMC:
Evolution of strategy development
海洋工程
Ocean oil
适时启动适合中集战略、
有生命力、有能力整合
的新业务。
能源化工装备
Energy facility
道路运输车辆
通过优化管理，研发创新，
成为全球海洋油气勘采装
备提供商。
SP vehicle
空港设备
搭建能源、化工、食品装备的全球
化营运平台，域全球领先的装备制
造商以及整体解决方案供应商。
Air-support
集装箱
不断内涵优化，提升全球化营运水
平，成为中国专用车领导品牌以及
全球最主要的供应商。
Container
为全球机场提供优质的地面设备
和服务，成为登机桥最主要的供
应商。
通过完善网络布局，以及业务模式创新，
不断提升集团在集装箱制造产业的竞争力，
并引领集装箱制造产业发展趋势。
集装箱 Containers
·
Active participator to international
standard and a leader of national standard
Innovation Platform of CIMC
Corporate
strategy
Technology strategy
Basic technology
Product development
Manufacturing technology
Mot platform: patent and standard
R&D center
HR
Motivation
However, China is still lack of innovation
capability, especially at standard.
Standard is the weakness of innovation
capability: most national standards are old
dated and few international standards reached,
China owns 0.21% among 14941 items of ISO
and 0.28% at IEC.
Managing the Creation Process of
Standard
Standards creation is an important issue for the
healthy development of industries at the international
arena.
Up to now, most extant research has focused on
investigating economic, strategic rationale and
conditions responsible for standards creation and
economic payoffs to the stakeholders, the process of
standardization has largely been ignored within the
research community despite the tremendous
importance of standards in modern society (Choi et
al. 2004; Björk and Laakso 2010).
According to the socio-technical models,
standardization process is often viewed as
collaboration and negotiation processes between
stakeholders and is characterized by dynamic
interactions among stakeholders such as technology
providers, user organizations and other standards
bodies (Choi et al. 2004). In fact, it is a coalition of
organizations and groups of individuals working
together towards a common goal that make standards
happen (Saltzman et al. 2008).
According to the innovation process models,
standardization can be seen as an innovation
and product development project (Björk and
Laakso 2010) covering from basic research to
product design, manufacturing and
introduction (Miller and Morris 1999). In both
regards, managing the standards creation
process is to deal with the relationship with
project partners at the different development
stages.
we conduct a longitudinal study to explore the
standards creation process in which a project team
has initiated, planned and selected relative
cooperative partners and organizational modes to
fulfill the project.
Specifically, the case of Ethernet for Plant
Automation (EPA) standard in SUPCON based on
the project management and innovation management
literature.
Conception
Realization
Partner
selection
Ø
Source
Ø
Objective
University and
research institute
Peer
Ø
Reason for
open
Lead user
Ø
Scouting of
partners
Development
process
Government
Basic research
Applied
development
Standard
application
Fig. 1 Schematic representation of the theoretical framework
Standard
exploitation
After the stage of basic research of EPA project,
SUPCON starts to make the most of its advantage in
industrial application and practice. It actively makes
alliance with other leading firms within the operation
field,
SUPCON creates a technology development club
called ‘EPA club’ which puts forward a lot of
valuable suggestions for SUPCON’s enhancement.
SUPCON contacts timely the lead users to obtain
feedback about technology and product to make the
standard more perfect.
Under the support of SAC from the national
level, the EPA technology of SUPCON had
been recognized as the international standard
by IEC. In October 2007, SUPCON, as the
first domestic enterprise, obtains the
international standard for field bus (IEC61158/
Type 14) and international standards for realtime Ethernet (IEC 61784-2 /CPF14) in
industrial automation.
SUPCON further expands the EPA club in which at
last the number of firms, universities and research
institutes altogether exceeds about 100. SUPCON
contracts with the club firms and provides them with
preferential treatment, allowing them to using the
standards at free.
On the other hand, SUPCON in alliance with the
main members of the EPA club continues to apply for
the national research funds for standard
industrialization.
Table 1 Selected partners and corresponding organizational modes along the EPA realization process
Technology development
Realization
of EPA
Universities and
research
institutes
Basic research
Construction of joint research
center with universities and
research institutes
Application for national ‘863’
research funds with
universities and research
institutes
Applied development
Cooperation with
universities and research
institutes to acquire
technical service
Alliance with peers and
creation of EPA club to
accelerate the development
process
Peers
Government
Application for national ‘863’
research funds from DRC
Application for research
funds with club members
from MOST and DRC to
ease their financial burden
Lead users
Cooperation with lead users
(such as CNPC and SINOPEC)
to specify their needs for
technology development
Cooperation with lead users
to further specify needs
Obtaining feedback about
technology and product
Standard application and exploitation
Standard application
EPA club is responsible for
drafting standards with
Zhejiang University
dominated and SUPCON
ranked second
Application for Chinese
national standard from SAC
Getting support from SAC to
apply for international
standard
Standard exploitation
Expansion of EPA club
with more peers
Contraction with club
members for standard
exploitation
Application for research
funds from MOST and
DRC to further
exploitation
Getting support from
government for standard
exploitation
Policy suggestion
Standard as the first priority and new
indicator for innovation capability. From
R&D expenditure, patents and papers to
Standard.
Both at technical standard and service
standard.
Setting the standard patent.
 Setting Standard network. Strategic Alliance of
Technological Innovation in China should pay more
attention to industrial standard.
 The Europe INNOVA Standards Networks focused on integrating
standards in innovative products, services and business practices and on
demonstrating the benefits of using standards in six different industry and
services areas.




Using existing standards better
Award-winning project
Standards for better products
Spreading the word
Taking standard and its income as the new
competitive advantage for the company.
CEOs and other executives should provide
strong incentive and management system for
standardization, from copy cat to a vision of
changing the world.
Managing the creation process for standard.
The innovation project should be selective
open (Henkel 2006) which in our case means
the partners and corresponding organizational
modes being chosen should vary at each stage
and even at the single stage the openness to
partners is also different.
Governments play an important role at the
standard application and exploitation process
which is noteworthy for high-tech firms in
developing countries as it faces a lot of
dilemma in resources, such as research funds,
talents and international fame.
Thanks
chenjin@zju.edu.cn