Related to what? Reviewing the literature on technological relatedness: Where we are now and where can we go?

The objective of this paper is to critically review contemporary insights derived from studies that focus on relatedness. A well-established body of literature has identified three approaches for measuring relatedness, those based on co-occurrence matrices, industrial hierarchy and resource similarity. From these measures, several authors have begun developing relational networks to capture the branching capabilities of products, industries, technologies and skills. Thereafter the present contribution then shifts from analysing 'what is' and begins considering what 'could be'? It argues that the concept of relatedness lies at the heart of deconstructing issues of unrelated diversification and smart specialisation.