(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-09)
Fagerberg, Jan; Verspagen, Bart; Mowery, David C.
This paper analyses the co-evolution of science, technology and innovation policy and
industrial structure in a small, resource-based economy (Norway). The contributions of the
paper are threefold. First, it develops an evolutionary and historically oriented approach to the
study of the development of science, technology and innovation policy based that may have
wide applicability. Second, if focuses on a particular type of innovation, innovation in
resource-based activities, that differs in many respects from the more commonly studied
“high-tech” case and which arguably be of relevance for may present day developing
countries. Third, the paper advances our understanding of the roles played by institutions and
politics in innovation. Previous work on national systems of innovation has often devoted
little attention to these matters, possibly because much of it examines “snapshots” of various
innovation systems at a specific point in time and lacks historical depth.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-09)
Fagerberg, Jan; Srholec, Martin
Innovation is, as Joseph Schumpeter once pointed out, above all a combinatory phenomenon.
Success in accessing knowledge and exploiting it in a way that is beneficial for development
depends on the ability to combine many different skills and resources, of which many will be
external to the firm. Arguably, political choices, past as well as present, the quality of
governance and the business environment, availability of skills, finance and broader social
and cultural characteristics may all have a say for how well this combinatory dynamics works.
Based on a review of the literature on how technological, economic and social factors interact
in the development process this paper sets out to explore these interrelationships empirically.
The results, based on data for 75 countries on different levels of development, suggest that
there is a strong correlation between technological capability, (innovation-friendly)
governance and social capital, confirming, it is suggested, the important role played by
politics and deeper social and cultural factors for technological catch-up (or lack of such).
This contrasts with the role played by for instance openness to trade, FDI, etc., which -
according to the results presented here - hardly correlates with anything.