Sam Youl Lee

INNOVATION, HUMAN CAPITAL, AND CREATIVITY

Innovation has long been understood as a fundamental factor in economic growth. Economists, geographers, and other social scientists have examined the effects of innovation on economic growth, the factors associated with the production of innovations, and the geographic distribution of innovations. Jane Jacobs notes that the capacity to innovate is a product of a local environment or milieu that attracts talented people and is open and creative. Following Jacobs, this paper argues that innovation is a joint product of human capital and creativity. The capacity to innovate is seen to be a function of a region’s ability to attract human capital and to provide low barriers to entry for talented and creative people of all backgrounds. Multivariate models are used to test the joint effects of research and development expenditure, human capital, creativity/diversity, and industry mix on regional innovation. New measures of creativity (the bohemian index) and diversity (the gay index) are introduced. The findings suggest that innovation at the regional level is positively and significantly associated with both human capital and creativity.

Dual Faces of Ministerial Leadership in South Korea Does Political Responsiveness or Administrative Responsibility Enhance Perceived Ministerial Performance

This study is designed to examine dual faces of ministerial leadership that functions in the gray area of politics and administration when a minister performs his or her role as a political appointee and as a department head. The dual faces of ministerial leadership require somehow both political responsiveness and administrative responsibility for effective ministerial performance. Using the perceptual data of middle- and high-ranked South Korean government officials collected from the 2002 and 2007 Korean Minister Surveys, this study attempts to understand the relationship between types of ministerial leadership and performance in agenda setting, policy implementation, and internal management. The results of this study show that president-centered ministerial leadership (political responsiveness) is positively associated with agenda-setting performance and policy implementation performance whereas department-centered leadership (administrative responsibility) is positively associated with all performance areas, including agenda setting, implementation, and internal management.This study is designed to examine dual faces of ministerial leadership that functions in the gray area of politics and administration when a minister performs his or her role as a political appoint...

The effects of government financial support on business innovation in South Korea

This paper briefly explains the evolution of the Korean governments financial support for business innovation and then presents an economic analysis of the effects of the governments research and development (R&D) investment on innovation output at the firm level. The empirical analysis is based on the Korean Innovation Survey 2005 and uses probit regression models and matching estimators. It found that government funding generally has a positive effect on innovation output at the firm level. When it comes to the level of innovativeness, however, it is revealed that government financial support has a positive, but statistically insignificant, effect on achieving high innovativeness. This finding is especially noteworthy considering how hard the government has tried to level up the novelty of its national innovation system, promoting enterprises to being developers and not just adopters in the innovation process. South Korea has successfully caught up with advanced economies by adopting and adapting imported technologies at a rapid rate.

An Empirical Analysis on the Determinants of the Length of Ministerial Tenure in Korea, 1980–2008

ABSTRACT The study of the length of ministerial tenure has received some attention by scholars of public management in Western countries. Responding to the lack of empirical research on ministerial duration in non-Western countries, this article empirically examines the determinants of ministerial duration based on the Korean Ministerial Database from 1980 to 2008. The empirical findings are as follows. First, being a female minister decreases the probability of stepping down by 1.78 times compared to a male minister. Second, political democratization after 1987 drastically increases the probability of ministerial stepping down by 3.46 times. Third, confirmation hearings after 2005 decrease the probability of ministerial stepping down by 0.53 times. Based on these empirical findings of the analysis, we can identify distinctive characteristics of ministerial duration in Korea. We argue that as the Korean political system shifts from military or authoritarian rule to democratic rule after 1987, a single five-year presidential term may set a political environment for frequent changes of ministers to allocate political spoils.

Policy Challenges and Ethical Issues with the Breakthrough Technology: The Case of Synthetic Biology

Synthetic biology is an exciting field which has enormous potentials for solving various problems human beings are facing up such as genetic disease, food shortage and global warming. Many countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and China have invested heavily in this field but the negative aspect of such scientific breakthrough draws little attention. Since the harms synthetic biology can cause is not certain, it is neither safe nor proper to leave it to the hands of only experts. Currently researches on synthetic biology are being conducted without proper public discourse and consideration. One of the reasons for the lack of public discussion on synthetic biology is the speed of the development in the field. The field is innovating so fast that people have little chance to digest the consequence of such advances. Also the confusion on the definition of synthetic biology contributes to the lack of proper public discussion on the issue. This article provides a new typology for definition of synthetic biology conceptualised by the authors and analyses the current state of synthetic biology in major countries. In addition, ethical issues associated with synthetic biology are discussed. Scientific transparency and participatory process are suggested as policy options to deal with them.

Government-led regional innovation: a case of ‘Pangyo’ IT cluster of South Korea

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the effective formulation and implementation of ‘Pangyo Techno Valley’ (PTV), a regional innovation cluster led by Gyeonggi province in Korea. It emphasizes the historical, institutional and regional contexts to understand the concept of regional innovation cluster by using the framework of indicators of regional innovation. Especially this paper investigates PTV in terms of open innovation in supply chains. The development of PTV is theoretically interesting since the local government played an active role in providing with various incentives including physical space next to Seoul. This paper investigates the success factors for establishing PTV in the context of RIS and how a local government-led RIS can overcome the existing limits shown in other development policies the Korean government had pursued so far. This paper argues that the strategic investment and administrative support by Gyeonggi province and the location of PTV have played a critical role for the success of PTV by attracting abundant numbers of IT companies and competent talents. The finding is expected to provide an ample policy reference for other developing countries as they are eager to emulate the success of ‘Silicon Valley’ but have kept failing.