Addressing Resource Over-exploitation Via Cooperative Institutions: Examining How Technology Roadmapping Could Contribute

In a resource constrained world, valuable resources will increasingly need to be managed as part of the global commons, however the current global market has been shown to be ill-equipped to protect common resources from over-exploitation. However leading thinkers on this subject have previously identified collaboration as a fundamental successful factor in the sustainable management of small scale common resources. It follows that collaboration could play a part contributing to a resource sustainable manufacturing industry in the future. This paper examines for the first time the potential of technology roadmapping, a strategic tool widely used by manufacturing firms, to foster collaboration between firms in an industry. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, a long running industry-wide collaborative effort, is taken as a case study. While not focused exclusively on sustainable resource use, this paper finds similarities between the features of this collaborative effort and the characteristics of successful cooperative institutions. The implications of this finding suggest that further research should be considered into identifying how technology roadmapping could contribute to a more sustainable manufacture sector.