The intellectual evolution of the technological catch-up literature: Bibliometric analysis

•The literature on technological catch up shows convergence in topics but not convergence in intellectual attributions.•We identified three stages in the literature: a convergence between the economic growth and technology capabilities literature (1980/the 1990s).•A shift from the macro issues of growth and convergence to (latecomer) firm and sectoral level issues (2000s).•Concern over the relationship between globalization and technology upgrading at the or mezzo level (2010s).•Richard Nelson is central in the authors' co-citation network, whose work bridges four different approaches in technological catch-up studies. We analyse the growing literature on technological catch-up since the 1980s to identify its intellectual bases and evolution. The analysis uses co-occurrence and co-citation techniques to explore trends in keywords, journals, documents, and authors. In the 1980s, the area was characterised by two unrelated streams of work on macroeconomic growth and the building of technological capabilities at the micro-level in developing economies. During the 1990s, when the technological catch-up literature began to take off, these two streams of literature evolved further and came closer to each other. During the 2000s, firm-level studies rooted in resource-based and knowledge-based views proliferated. From 2010 they were followed by an increased number of studies of latecomer firm internationalisation. The field's qualitative evolution has been characterised by the convergence between the economic growth and technology capabilities literature, a change of focus from the macro issues of growth and convergence to firm (latecomer firm) and sectoral level issues, and a dominant concern about the relationship between globalisation and technology upgrading at the sectoral or mezzo level. There are four streams that currently underpin research on technology catch up: economic growth, systems of innovation, knowledge management, and industrial dynamics cum global value chains and latecomer firm.