Erik Baark

Biotechnology and culture: The impact of public debates on government regulation in the United States and Denmark

Abstract This paper discusses the ways in which public discourse about biotechnology has affected policy making. It is the authors contention that attitudes to new technologies are transformed into policy through a “mediating filter” of confrontations, institutional innovations and conceptual debates. We also contend that these filters are different for different countries, that they are manifestations of particular national political and organizational cultures. The cultural dimension of technology is a function both of the implications of the developmental trajectory of a particular technology, as well as the particular context in which the technology develops. In this paper we attempt to delineate the general contours of the historical development of the “new biotechnology.” Specifically, we identify and characterize the major phases in the biotechnology debates that have taken place in the United States and Denmark. The biotechnology field in general, as well as the various individual technologies that have been developed within the field, have been going through different stages of the innovation “chain” or product cycle. The authors attempt to show how such stages of “internal” technological development exert a crucial influence on the focus and scope of the national discourses.

Knowledge and Innovation in China: Historical Legacies and Emerging Institutions

The purpose of this study is to provide a critical and historically grounded perspective on the institutional fabric for knowledge generation and innovative activities in Chinese society. Utilizing theoretical and methodological insights from social epistemology, it explores legacies of traditional Chinese perceptions of the utility of scientific knowledge, the balance of exploitation/exploration, the prestige of innovation, and the division of labour in knowledge production and application. It is argued that these legacies have continued to shape emerging contemporary institutions of knowledge and innovation. They contribute to tensions between the search for knowledge and requirements of power; they bias innovative activities towards exploitation; and they constrain creative entrepreneurship in the transitional innovation system.

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

The key principles of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government guidelines on procurement adhere to the general spirit of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement. Moreover, the government has not been particularly keen to promote innovation, and it has only been during the last decade that explicit, but limited, innovation policies have come into existence. Nevertheless, some public organizations have found a need to use innovation to improve services and operational efficiency, and thus have launched projects that required innovation in both technology and management, and in which a strong hand in demand management was necessary for successful implementation. This chapter discusses the case of the Octopus Card project initiated in 1994 by the public Mass Transit Railway Corporation against a backdrop of procurement and innovation-policy history in Hong Kong. The chapter describes how successful public procurement of an innovative RFID smart-card system for transportation fees led to a widespread diffusion and diversification of business activity related to RFID cards. The conclusion is that public procurement to support innovation can be successful in Hong Kong, and the effects of the current lack of active policies to encourage demand for innovation represents lost opportunities to enhance the competitiveness of the economy.

Engineering consultancy : an assessment of IT-enabled international delivery of services

The delivery of engineering consultancy services in global markets has been dominated by a small group of firms located in Europe and the US. Like many other service industries, engineering consultants have depended on the movement of highly qualified people and establishment of local affiliates for rendering their services in overseas markets. However, the diffusion of new information technology (IT) and the use of advanced telecommunications have changed the patterns of production and delivery of engineering design services. This paper examines the role of IT in changing modes of internationalization in the sector, focussing in particular on the potential for IT-enabled delivery that would provide an increased tradability of services. It is argued that new technologies have led to integration of project work and new sources of competitiveness in major firms, but that the emerging capacity to deliver services in arms-length transactions across national borders does not appear to have been significantly e...

Hong Kong’s Innovation System in Transition: Challenges of Regional Integration and Promotion of High Technology

The success of Asian economies (first Japan, then Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and, more recently, China and India) has made it tempting to look for ‘an Asian model of development’. However, the strength of Asian development lies less in strategies that reproduce successful national systems of innovation and more in the capacity for institutional change to open up new development trajectories with greater emphasis on knowledge and learning. The select group of contributors demonstrate that although there are important differences among Asian countries in terms of institutional set-ups supporting innovation, government policies and industrial structures, they share common transitional processes to cope with the globalizing learning economy.

The effects of innovation sources and capabilities on product competitiveness in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta

It is widely recognized in the theoretical literature that firms need to use both internal and external sources of innovation to gain a competitive advantage. However, although it is assumed that internal and external sources of innovation have distinct relationships with firm capabilities, it is not clear how various innovation sources affect such capabilities, or how or to what extent such relationships affect product competitiveness. This paper examines the effect of diverse sources of innovation on a firms technological innovation capabilities and the extent to which such capabilities mediate the improvement of product competitiveness. Based on a survey of 200 manufacturing firms in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region, we identify internal departments as a major source of innovation for improving a range of firm capabilities. Acquiring disembodied technology improves learning, resource allocation and organizing capabilities, whereas acquiring embodied technology enhances learning and manufacturing capabilities. We use a hierarchical regression analysis to demonstrate that some sources of innovation, such as internal departments, can lead directly to superior product competitiveness, whereas innovations acquired through conferences and competitors contribute to competitiveness through the mediation effects of resource allocation, marketing and organizing capabilities.

The Transformation of Research Technology Organisations (RTOs) in Asia and Europe

Research technology organizations (RTOs) are undergoing a transition in their traditional role. This transition is driven by two key shifts in the environment within which RTOs operate: increasing pressure to commercialise research outputs and the internationalisation of the research endeavor, providing new opportunities for both funding and transfer of outputs. We note that these trends are felt in both industrialised and industrialising economies, acknowledging a need for properly framed comparative studies. Among the key questions addressed here: How do open, global R&D networks affect RTO research portfolios? Does building national resources reduce international opportunities? Can Asian RTOs reorient their operations from doing basic research to producing commercialisable outputs as effectively as some of their European counterparts? Before reviewing important developments in the RTO literature, we distinguish several types of RTOs. The literature reflecting the abovementioned environmental shifts indicates that RTOs play an important role in helping industrialising economies catch up with their industrialised counterparts. We note also the role RTOs play in transferring university research outputs, and call for more studies of the role of RTOs in industrialization as opposed to agricultural development. We close with brief descriptions of the five studies that comprise this special issue.

The accumulation of technology: Capital goods production in developing countries revisited

Abstract This paper examines theoretical and empirical issues related to the establishment of new capital goods industries in developing countries. Conventional theoretical approaches emphasize economic growth through allocation of substantial resources to capital goods production. An extension of these approaches is proposed to account for the increasingly important role of the sector in innovation and diffusion of technology. In addition, it is argued that the global diffusion of key value-added core components and the imperatives of dynamic, information-related economies of scale tend to erode comparative advantages from low labor costs in developing countries.

From Trade Hub to Innovation Hub: The Role of Hong Kong's Innovation System in Linking China to Global Markets

Summary Hong Kong has achieved a remarkable rate of economic growth in the last half of the twentieth century, and is widely acknowledged as an important driver of development in South China. The territory occupies a unique position as an international trade and financial hub on the Chinese border, in which capacity it has been well served by the entrepreneurial drive and resilience of its population. Extensive exploitation of technology and innovation in the organization of international production networks have fueled Hong Kong’s economic success – but the risks associated with these features of the innovation system also threaten to undermine the territory’s future growth. This paper discusses the nature of the global and regional linkages characterizing Hong Kong’s innovation system – particularly its integration with a rapidly developing innovation system in China – and its move towards an innovation hub status.

New Modes of Learning in Services: A Study of Hong Kong's Consulting Engineers

The point of departure of this paper is that Hong Kong consulting engineers face a challenge of making a transition from a traditional mode of learning based primarily on the exploitation of existing knowledge to a more innovation‐oriented mode of learning. Focusing on three key dimensions of the accumulation of knowledge in the consulting engineering sector, the paper examines the intrinsic and extrinsic barriers to an innovation‐oriented mode of learning among consulting engineering firms in Hong Kong. First, the paper studies the role of mobilizing creative human resources; second, it examines the role of partnership and interaction in project‐based organizations; third, it explores the effects of more widespread use of information and communication technology (ICT) for enhancing the flow of knowledge and innovation in the sector.