Abstract
Sustainable economic growth is closely linked to a national system of innovation’s (NSI) adaptability. The NSI of a country in catch-up mode is different than one at the technology frontier. In this exploratory paper we use a socio-cognitive approach to demonstrate that shared mental models (SMMs) need to change with the evolution of a NSI to sustain growth. For South Korea in particular, this insight offers a way for it realize better technology transfer and commercialization (TTC) performance and a new cognitive model for its TTC teams to transition to and operate at the technology frontier. We use cognitive mapping techniques to interpret the interviews of teams in South Korea’s public research institutes active in TTC. Their SMMs reveal that a top-down policy for catching-up NSIs reinforces SMMs around a linear commercialization process. Alternatively, the participatory policy approach of frontier innovation systems supports interaction and the active learning of their actors’ SMMs. This affords a wider variety of innovation and commercialization processes. Consequently, a policy of transitioning NSIs that remains top-down freezes TTC teams in their existing SMMs fettering growth. By extension, as a transitioning NSI, South Korea should adopt policy that reconfigures its existing SMMs to encourage a more open approach to TTC.
Highlights
The sustainability of South Korea’s hitherto prodigious economic growth is in question
As may come to pass for some developing nations, South Korea stands at a critical juncture between its catch-up phase that has relied on technology adaptation and one that springs from its own capacity for creativity and knowledge generation
We focus on the role of team cognition in the implementation of technology commercialization policy, how policy-orientation relates to the cognition of inter-organizational technology transfer and commercialization (TTC) teams and, whether the differences in TTC performance of latecomer and frontier national system of innovation (NSI) can be explained by the relationship between team cognition and policy-orientation
Summary
The sustainability of South Korea’s hitherto prodigious economic growth is in question. South Korea’s technology transfer and commercialization (TTC) process is mired and threatens to fetter, if not entirely stall growth. As may come to pass for some developing nations, South Korea stands at a critical juncture between its catch-up phase that has relied on technology adaptation and one that springs from its own capacity for creativity and knowledge generation. If a lesson is to be learned, it is that the sustainability of technology driven growth derives from the adaptability of the shared mental models (SMMs) of a country’s national system of innovation (NSI). Despite successful technological learning and catch-up, the South Korean NSI lags behind most developed countries in technology transfer and commercialization (TTC) performance
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