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Asia’s national innovation systems: Institutional adaptability and rigidity in the face of global innovation challenges

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Abstract

This paper explores several features of, and changes in, innovation capacity in Asia. The growth of technology-based industries has been a critically important element of Asian industrial development and has required extensive institutional support for the diffusion of innovation and technological learning. As a number of Asian countries reach the global technological frontier they need to develop new capabilities for creating “radical” innovations in order to sustain their international competitiveness. Using the analytical frameworks of national innovation systems and varieties of capitalism, the paper reviews some systemic and environmental factors encouraging and constraining these developments. By referring to illustrative case studies of institutional evolution within Taiwan’s national innovation system and technological entrepreneurship in Korea, the paper argues that whilst there are major developments in models of innovation support, emulating those found in liberal market economies, enduring cultural legacies can remain influential. It highlights the central importance of social as well as economic institutional adaptation. Some management and policy implications of this attribute are considered, and a future research agenda is proposed.

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Notes

  1. There are many different approaches to institutions. North (1990) sees them as the broad “rules of the game,” whilst other economists define them by their capacity to provide as coercive regulations. Other approaches emphasize their role in social, cultural and cognitive interpretations of the construction of legitimacy (Dacin et al., 2002). Here the definition is used of the formal economic and social contributors to the construction of appropriate and rational systems of organising within particular contexts.

  2. In definitions of radical innovation found in innovation studies, there is emphasis placed on its disruptive characteristics; the way it makes existing skills and knowledge redundant, and involves new ways of doing things. Speed, being first to market or a fast follower, is another important element.

  3. This is not to deny that there are other, and perhaps more important, shared understandings of rational and appropriate institutional frameworks that may elevate other considerations above that of the “market.” The family, for example, provides an alternate manifestation of a different institutional logic, of particular importance in Asia, and especially in Chinese societies.

  4. R&D expenditure and patenting are highly imperfect and piecemeal indicators of innovative capacity, yet they can be broadly illustrative in some technology-based sectors.

  5. See footnote 1.

  6. Including: Biotechnology Plaza; Nankang Software Park; ChuPei Biomedical Park; Chiayi Herbal Medicine Science Park; Tainan Science Park; Tainan Orchid Plantation; PingTung Agricultural Biotechnology Park; Tunghwa Biotechnology Incubator Centre.

  7. Point-of-sale proximity mobile payment allows users to record their credit card information onto a mobile phone memory chip or IC chip and this information can then be transmitted to credit authorization terminals via infrared communication channels without direct contact.

  8. Not the company’s real name.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technology and Innovation Management Centre, University of Queensland Business School, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia

    Mark Dodgson

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  1. Mark Dodgson
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Correspondence to Mark Dodgson.

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Keynote address for the Asia Pacific Journal of Management Special Issue Conference on “Varieties of Asian Capitalism: Indigenization and Internationalization” Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, 10–12 December, 2007.

This paper reports on a number of collaborative research projects, and the author wishes to acknowledge the contributions to the research of Marina Zhang, Tim Kastelle, John Mathews and Mei-Chih Hu. They are, of course, absolved from the paper’s shortcomings. He would like to particularly thank April Wright for her very insightful comments on the paper. Thanks also to Vandana Ujjual for updating some of the data.

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Dodgson, M. Asia’s national innovation systems: Institutional adaptability and rigidity in the face of global innovation challenges. Asia Pac J Manag 26, 589–609 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-008-9105-4

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