An ANP-based technology network for identification of core technologies: A case of telecommunication technologies

There have often been attempts to examine technological structure and linkage as a network. Network analysis has been mainly employed with various centrality measures to identify core technologies in a technology network. None of the existing centrality measures, however, can successfully capture indirect relationships in a network. To address this limitation, this study proposes a novel approach based on the analytic network process (ANP) to identification of core technologies in a technology network. Since the ANP is capable of measuring the relative importance that captures all the indirect interactions in a network, the derived “limit centrality” indicates the importance of a technology in terms of impacts on other technologies, taking all the direct and indirect influences into account. The proposed approach is expected to allow technology planners to understand current technological trends and advances by identifying core technologies based on limit centralities. Using patent citation data as proxy for interactions between technologies, a case study on telecommunication technologies is presented to illustrate the proposed approach.