Abstract
The objective of this paper is to derive the innovation profile in developing countries, such as South Africa, from a technology roadmapping practitioner’s point of view. The specific research questions that are addressed are i) what are the main priorities for innovation in South Africa? and ii) what are the actual or perceived innovation competitive advantages for South Africa? A mixed methodology research is used that combines online quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews, and document analysis. The quantitative survey was conducted with researchers and practitioners involved with technology roadmaps in South Africa. Through the realism research philosophy that combines both inductive and deductive approaches, an analytical inference is made through the five propositions that have managerial and policy implications for the technology roadmapping community in developing countries.
Highlights
Most developing countries suffer from an underinvestment in research, technology, and innovation infrastructures
Phaal and Muller [2] view Technology roadmaps (TRMs) as a general-purpose ‘strategic lens’ through which a complex innovation system can be viewed through well-structured and well-represented multiple interrelated perspectives: commercial and strategic perspectives; design, development, and production perspectives; and technology and research perspectives
The innovation dynamic of South African Science and technology (S&T) roadmaps is unique, in the sense that the focus is more on building future technological capability, starting from a weak baseline
Summary
Most developing countries suffer from an underinvestment in research, technology, and innovation infrastructures. This is further exacerbated by the lack of an innovation and entrepreneurship culture, which results in short-term innovation planning. The technology roadmapping technique provides a long-term planning framework that integrates corporate and technology planning This forward-looking strategic planning tool facilitates the collection and documentation of future technology expectations of what is likely to happen, and combines this with the future desires of the key stakeholders and commitments from these stakeholders [1]. Technology roadmaps (TRMs) facilitate consensus between stakeholders, and represent the innovation dynamics taking place in the organisation, industry, or the country for which the roadmap is developed. The most common graphical format of TRM shows a visual representation of the innovation dynamics through multi-layered horizontal graphs that show time horizons on the vertical axis and a set of themes on the vertical axis [3]
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