Persistent Developmental Limits to Devising Policy Innovation for Innovation Policies in Emerging Economies

Promising industrial profiles of Southeast Asian emerging economies have met their developmental limits in the face of the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s. However, following the crisis, they have not been successful in upscaling the technological competitiveness of their industries. By applying the national innovation system approach originally developed in advanced western economies as an institutional mechanism of policy innovation in light of developmentalism, I seek to explain these persistent developmental limits in Malaysia and Indonesia. My qualitative research examines literature discussing policy coordination mechanisms in innovation policies and policy documents containing coordination mechanisms involving firms, universities, and government agencies; then, how these issues implicate innovation policies in the two countries. I employ a comparative institutional analysis between them focusing on institutional characteristics of the national innovation systems, specifically their institutional obstacles occurring within development paths amidst prevailing political environments. I suggest that persistent developmental limits in Malaysia and Indonesia result from systemic failures of achieving developmental aims regardless of their politico-administrative regimes. Existing institutional frameworks of the national innovation systems, entrenched in the socio-economic prevalence of the two countries, have not fit the nations’ developmental aims pursued upon innovation upgrading.

Transições para a sustentabilidade na agricultura corporativa: inovação agroecológica na viticultura do Douro, Portugal

Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é aplicar a Multi Level Perspective (MLP) a um caso de transição para a sustentabilidade da agricultura que ocorre a partir do desenvolvimento de uma inovação agroecológica. À perspectiva temporal e multinível dada pela MLP, conjugamos o conceito de Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS), com a intenção de conciliar uma dimensão territorial para a análise. O cenário empírico é a região vitivinícola do Douro, em Portugal, na qual se disseminou uma inovação denominada Infraestrutura Ecológica (IE). Metodologicamente, fizemos entrevistas pessoais estruturadas, realizadas com agricultores ou gestores agrícolas, representantes de explorações comerciais de uva e vinho. Constatamos que há um princípio de transição liderado por agricultores corporativos que comercializam no mercado global. Este princípio de transição está alicerçado na mobilização de um AKIS territorial que permitiu o desenvolvimento do arcabouço cognitivo e técnico que estruturou o setor para sua articulação às demandas de mercado. Entretanto, este AKIS não é igualmente mobilizado pelos diferentes agricultores, o que se manifesta em distintas respostas de adoção da inovação. O caso explicita como as pressões de paisagem sociotécnica, representada pelo mercado, podem criar diferentes respostas no regime local.

Comparison of National Innovation Systems in the European Union Countries

The effective operation of national innovation systems can be a source of many opportunities, but it cannot be forgotten that innovation in itself may mean limiting but also generating various types of risks for the functioning of the local market. The main aim of the article is to present the concept and classification of national innovation systems in the world and to try to answer whether the type of NIS determines the level of innovation of the economies of the European Union countries. The following research thesis was formulated in the study: the type of National Innovation System determines a certain level of innovation in the economy of an European Union country, i.e., in countries belonging to a developed NIS, the level of innovation of the economy is higher than in countries belonging to developing systems. The results of the analysis confirm the research thesis. In the empirical part, the level of innovation in the European Union countries was assessed using the synthetic measure of development (SMD) by Z. Hellwig. Based on the obtained values of the synthetic measure of development (innovation), a ranking of the innovation of the economies of the EU countries was compiled and groups of countries with a similar degree of innovation in the economy were distinguished. The developed ranking of the European Union countries was compared with the NSI classification presented in the theoretical part of the article. The study covered 2010 and 2019.

Mapping the Territorial Adaptation of Technological Innovation Systems—Trajectories of the Internal Combustion Engine

Besides the rise of sustainable technologies, successful sustainability transitions crucially depend on the phase-out of unsustainable ones. However, the detailed dynamics of declining technological innovation systems (TIS) remain vague. Thus, based on the new TIS life cycle framework, we investigate how the technological dimension of a mature TIS adapts to increasing transformational pressures towards its decline. Considering the internal combustion engine (ICE) as a suitable research case, we measure the technological adaptation as changes in the dominant technological trajectory over time and across TIS territories. Empirically, this is operationalised by a main path analysis in patent citation networks, using 221,700 patents to cover the period from 10 January 1901 until 31 January 2019. Our results not only point to considerable shifts in the direction of technological development over time but also highlight stark differences across the three major car markets. Most notably, in contrast to USA and Japan, where hybrid powertrains have become the dominant alternative powertrains, the dominant trajectory in the EU territory points to an ongoing commitment towards diesel technology. In essence, our results highlight the importance of path dependency and connectivity of the knowledge search process as well as selective forces on the innovation system level, which have been neglected by related empirical studies. Conceptionally, our analysis demonstrates that the technological adaptation process is influenced by specific developments during a time period and heterogenous territorial dynamics within the TIS. Consequently, future TIS studies might consider spatially heterogeneous development cycles as well as possible mechanisms to establish an international trajectory towards sustainability goals.