Abstract
This article suggests that variations in the dominant pattern of innovation policy coordination can be analysed and understood effectively by dividing innovation and other complementary socio-economic policies into low-complexity and high-complexity tasks. The effective implementation of these two sets of policy tasks that differ in the extent, nature and intractability of collective action problems confronting the coordination process hinges on the strength of two sociopolitical institutions: bureaucratic organizational structures and interactive governing arrangements. While bureaucratic organizational structures are better suited to delivering low-complexity tasks, interactive governing arrangements are more effective in resolving high-complexity policy problems. They interact differently across political economies to structure the management of coordination challenges and thus give rise to divergent patterns of innovation policy-making. The comparative analysis of innovation policy coordination between Hong Kong and Singapore over the past two decades lends strong support to the central theoretical propositions of the article.
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Notes
Interview with a senior official from the Hong Kong Productivity Council, Hong Kong, 30 August 2016. See also Ng and Ip (2011).
Interview with senior officials from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Hong Kong, 16 August 2016. See also Lall (2003).
In 2018, the CSD was reorganized into the Council of Advisors on Innovation and Strategic Development (CAISD) whose function and composition appear to have remained similar to those of the CSD.
Interview with a former senior official of the Central Policy Unit (CPU), Hong Kong, 11 January 2014. The CPU that had served as a secretariat for the CSD until 2018 has since been replaced by a restructured Policy Innovation and Coordination Office that provides secretarial and research support to the CAISD.
Interviews with senior officials from the Innovation and Technology Commission, 22 July 2013, and from the Innovation and Technology Bureau, Hong Kong, 10 January 2017.
Interviews with half a dozen senior managers and more than 80 executives of high-tech firms in the HKSTP between July 2013 and January 2017.
See note 2.
Interviews with a former senior official from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong, 18, August 2016, and with senior officials from the Innovation and Technology Bureau, 10 January 2017.
Interviews with a former senior official from the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau, Hong Kong, 9 January 2014, and with a senior official from the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau, Hong Kong, 2 September 2016.
Interview with a senior MTI official, Singapore, 16 July 2015. The A*STAR is mainly tasked to coordinate public R&D resources and activities, and the SPRING is responsible for promoting innovation capabilities among SMEs.
Interview with a former senior official from the Singapore Monetary Authority, Singapore, 14 January 2015.
Interview with senior executives from the Singapore National Employers’ Federation, Singapore, 3 July 2015.
Interviews with a former senior official of the A*STAR, Singapore, 20 January 2015, and with a senior MTI official, Singapore, 16 July 2015.
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to this important point.
A partial exception is OECD (2011).
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Zhang, X. The institutional structuring of innovation policy coordination: theory and evidence from East Asia. Policy Sci 53, 101–138 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-019-09364-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-019-09364-0