Industrial Technological Capabilities Research Articles

Mechanism Innovation from Industry-University-Research Collaboration Innovation to Deep Integration

Industry-university-research collaborative innovation not only contributes to the flow of knowledge within the national innovation system, but is also a basic way to enhance the country's industrial technological capabilities. Aiming at the problem analysis of the collaborative innovation of industry-university-research institutes, drawing on the experience of deep integration of industry-university-research institutes abroad, the mechanism innovation from collaborative innovation of industry-university-research institutes to deep integration is proposed: The government should play an effective guiding role, give play to the role of the market in resource allocation, build a reasonable rights and interests distribution mechanism, build a value dimension of common development, and establish a joint talent training mechanism. Through the research of this topic, an innovation and entrepreneurship mechanism that is conducive to the transformation of scientific research results is constructed, and the relationship between universities and the government, industry and various innovation and entrepreneurship institutions is rationalized. Establish a benign interactive service management system, cultivate innovative and innovative talents, promote the aggregation of innovative elements, stimulate innovation potential, and promote the deep integration of technology and economy.

Government programmes in financing innovations: Comparative innovation system cases of Malaysia and Thailand

This paper explores the main government programmes in financing innovations using comparative innovation system cases of Malaysia and Thailand, the emerging tigers of Asian economies. The study provides an empirical evidence of the innovation financing system based on the National Innovation System (NIS) concept. The main argument of the paper is that the role of the state (government’s role) is necessary to improve a country’s absorptive capacity in order to promote technology development. The results have shown the country-specific configuration of interacting institutions to promote industrial technological capabilities. Innovation policies need to be linked to the overarching economic goals and adequately supported by specific programmes to remedy market failures (underinvestment in research and development).

Industrial Policy Changes and Firm-Level Technological Capability Development: Evidence from Northern Brazil

Summary Much has been written about the impacts of the policy changes of the 1990s on industrial performance, particularly in Latin America. Most of the studies are based on aggregated analyses that argue for or against such reforms in the policy regime. This study offers an alternative view to this debate based on a longitudinal empirical scrutiny of technological capability development in 46 local and foreign firms from three sectors in Northern Brazil. There were inter-sector and inter-firm variations in terms of the manner and rate of capability development for specific technical functions. Overall, the patterns of firm-level capability development exhibited a positive response to the structural reforms, but such responses were not a mere consequence of trade openness. A combination of government policy, foreign competition, and intra-firm capability building efforts proved essential for speeding up capability development in some of the sampled firms. Thus policies for accelerating industrial technological capability development in a developing area such as the one examined here would involve not only macro-level incentives and competition, but, very importantly, measures that facilitate intra-firm capability building efforts.

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This article discusses some of the implications of the market-oriented reforms and the rapid pace of globalisation of the world economy in the 1990s for industrial technological capability building in Latin America. On the one hand, such changes have permitted much better macroeconomic management, allowing governments to curb inflation, and to deal with recurrent fiscal and balance of payments imbalances. These reforms and the process of globalization have also induced the inception of a modern sector of production which has managed to incorporate many new computer-based production organisation technologies and to attain rapid progress in the use of ICTs. New sectors of economic activity have emerged in the economy, many of which now lead in terms of international competitiveness.

The role of foreign direct investment in Indonesia's industrial technology development

Despite the large inflows of FDI into Indonesia's manufacturing sector during the past three decades, Indonesia has in general not been very successful in taking full advantage of the presence of FDI projects to promote the development of its indigenous industrial technological capabilities, at least compared to its East Asian neighbours. This lack of success has been attributed to the high facilitation payments required to realise an FDI project and the relatively high costs of infrastructure services and leasing land, the lack of transparency and cumbersome licensing procedures and, at least until the important foreign investment deregulation package of June 1994, the requirement for foreign investors to divest their equity ownership to a minority position of maximum 49%; within a specified period of time. In order to obtain greater technological benefits from FDI in the near future, the new Indonesian government will henceforth, aside from pursuing sound macroeconomic policies and pro-competition policies to ensure a competitive business environment, have to pursue a consistent and transparent foreign investment policy to attract the FDI it needs for Indonesia's economic recovery and for sustaining its economic growth and export-oriented industrialisation. To achieve this, the Indonesian government needs to continue dismantling its still cumbersome regulatory framework in order to reduce the still high facilitation costs associated with setting up a new FDI project. In addition, the Indonesian government will have to put a high priority on developing and upgrading the country's human resources in order to raise their capacity to absorb, assimilate, modify, and improve the imported technologies, whether transferred through FDI or purchased through technical licensing agreements with transnational corporations (TNCs).

Indonesia's Great Leap Forward? Technology Development and Policy Issues

Technological development and technology policy are vital to Indonesian development in the 1990s and beyond. They are the subject of much public commentary and debate, there are major analytical and policy questions to be resolved, and the Indonesian government already allocates considerable resources to these activities. The purpose of this paper is to survey and assess Indonesia's industrial technological capability, and to highlight key policy issues, in the context of the large analytical and empirical literature on this subject for developing countries. Indonesia is a latecomer by East Asian industrial standards, and this is reflected in various technology indicators The paper suggests directions for effective technology policy.

Military Industrial Networks and Technical Change in the New Strategic Environment

FOR FORTY YEARS THE COLD WAR, WITH ITS PRESUMED threat to Western Europe, has been used to justify the level of military budgets in NATO countries. The United States, Britain and France, in particular, have sustained high levels of military spending throughout this period. Each has sought to maintain capability across a full range of military options, including nuclear forces and the ability to intervene in Third World conflicts. Each has maintained a large, and quite stable, industrial and technological infrastructure in support of these military goals.With the ending of the cold war, the basis for that stability has been undermined. Defence spending is set to fall. With it will fall overall spending on defence equipment. But the rate of decline, and its distribution across the different sectors of the defence industry, remain to be determined. Upon the outcome turns the future of investment in defence technologies, with further consequences, complex in nature, for national and industrial technological capabilities. To complicate analysis further, these changes arise at a time of considerable concern on both sides of the Atlantic about industrial competitiveness. This concern had already led to upheaval in industrial structures and strategies within both the defence and the civil high technology industries.

About this issue

The article by Abrahamson is one of many that have appeared in the past 2–3 years in connection with meetings, conferences, investigations, and other activities related to the issue of the status of the innovation process in the U.S. Both the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Congress (via the Joint Economic Committee) have undertaken major studies of the causes of, and potential remedies for, what is perceived to be a general malaise in the process underlying our industrial technological capabilities. One important part of this picture is the role of small business, in particular small high-technology firms, which many people believe have made contributions to our technological advancement out of proportion to their aggregate size in the economy. What concerns some of the advocates and observers of this innovation role of small business, however, is that many small businesses operate under inhibiting conditions which do not provide the incentives and the means for them to participate fully in the transfer of technology and the overall R&D/Innovation process. Abrahamson discusses some of the issues involved and makes some recommendations.