National technological styles explained in terms of stakeholding patterns, enfranchisement and cultural differences: Britain and Japan

Abstract

The process of technological innovation poses three challenges to a financial system: novelly, visibility, and approapriability. Its capacity to cope with these challenges is a function of which groups/organizations are stakeholders in innovatio and to what extent; and in what way and to what extent they are enfranchised. From this point of view, the British and Japanese financial systems differ very sharply. So do British and Japanese culture, in relevant ways. The steel, fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries show the effects of these differences in practice. The importance of novelty, visibility and appropriability differs among them, as does the value of certain culturally-influenced features of innovative behaviour. Steel (and even more so engineering, into which the Japanese steel companies have diversified) appears well suited to Japanese characteristics, with fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals well suited to British characteristics. This accounts well for the two countries' comparative advantage in these area, in technology and trade.