International Technology Flows and the Technology Gap

The Experience Of Eastern European Socialist Countries In International Perspective

Jan Monkiewicz

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429710155
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Negocios y empresa
• Categoria: Negocios en general

This book assesses under what conditions and to what extent international technology transfer may contribute to technology gap closure in overall industrial activity. It is of particular interest for all developing countries as well as for the socialist countries of Eastern Europe.

Part I
Setting the Analytical Framework

Chapter 1
Determinants of National Technological Performance

1. Introduction

The subject of national technological performance and the resultant national technological build-up, i.e., accumulation of relevant resources, skills and capabilities, has since long been the matter of extensive studies of numerous researchers. They have undoubtedly cleared up a number of pertinent questions and eliminated some oversimplified views spread in the past. However, new questions and issues have been posed which await subsequent explanation. At the same time, some of the most challenging questions have remained untouched. These include, for example, the determinants of the rise and fall of individual countries and regions in the world-wide technological order, the role of leaders and followers in shaping world-wide technological trajectory, the national and international consequences of the assymetrical distribution of world-wide technological potentials and the like.

The aim of the present chapter is to provide a brief overview of the available theoretical explanations on determinants of national technological performance and comment on their explanatory power, i.e. their apparent ability of interpreting existing reality.

In the broad array of relevant literature, three principal methodological approaches have been identified and discussed. Let us call the first one a transaction-specific approach, the second one institutional approach and the third historical approach.

2. Transaction Specific Approach

The transaction specific approach towards national technological build-up and its determinants represents apparently the main stream of the relevant discussion so far. Obviously, it has evolved over time and became more and more refined. Its main methodological assumptions, however, remained basically unchanged.

According to this line of thinking, technological build-up is viewed as a specific process of the production and utilization of technological knowledge with different stages and actors. This process has its internal logic and is governed by relevant laws and interrelationships and its final results depend on the fulfilment of the necessary requirements, provision of the appropriate factors and on the accomplishment of their appropriate composition. The tradition for such an approach was laid down by the conference of the US Universities - National Bureau Committee for Economic Research and the Committee on Economic Growth of the Social Science Research Council held in 1962. The proceedings, published subsequently in the volume entitled "The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activitiy", have been considered a classical textbook on this subject (1).

The numerous contributors of the volume, guided apparently by a similar vision of technological change, drew attention to a variety of factors determining technological performance. Thus, for example, J.R. Minasian stressed the role of research and development outlays claiming that "productivity increases are associated with investment in the improvement of technology and the greater the expenditures for research and development the greater the rate of growth of productivity" (2). J. Schmookler, on the other hand, pointed out the role of interaction between accumulated knowledge and industry, assuming that the growth of modern western industrial technology has been primarily the result of an interplay of 1) changes in the state of knowledge and 2) changes in industry (3) (see Fig. 1.1.).

W.R. Thompson in the same volume drew attention to locational factors indicating that inventions were positively correlated with the rate of urbanization, scale of employment and degree of development of industrial and technological complexes (4).

The three authors just quoted are not meant to represent the major arguments contained in the analyzed volume but are rather to be taken as examples of the variety of factors studied and the variety of answers offered.

Fig. 1.1. Determinants of industrial inventive activity according to J. Schmookler

They all had in common, however, a perception of technological build-up as a process determined by some objective forces which should be sought in the very nature of technology creation and distribution. Paradoxically, however, the very process of technology creation and implementation has been largely considered the black box which only much later received proper attention and was extensively analyzed (5). Here one should mention particularly the works of C. Freeman, L.G. Soete, K. Pavitt, J.M. Utterback, Ch.T. Hill, F.M. Scherer, J. Röpke, G. Mensch and many, many others (6). The common perception of this process may be well exemplified by a model elaborated in the 1970s by a Polish economist, J. Ruszkiewicz (see Fig. 1.2.).

According to this model, technology build-up is viewed as a linear sequence of the creation of information (research), its transformation (development) and subsequent application in the production. The model draws attention to the fact that the elements research, transformation and production are both relatively interdependent and independent areas of human activity with different aims, value systems and applied languages. Final results of the process - frequently referred to as science-technologyproduction (STP) cycle - depend on the accomplishment of the proper degree of equilibrium among these three areas and on the creation of favorable transfer mechanisms (integrating interfaces). The first condition may be arrived at by opening a STP cycle to a foreign environment (by bringing additional supply and demand). The second, however, is the responsibility of national systemic and other arrangements. It is not an easy task because - argues J. Ruszkiewicz - there are some immanent forces that drive research and production activity apart. Scientists may be well comforted by producing research results exclusively for other scientists and thus feeding themselves ad infinitum. Production, on the other hand, may look for help abroad and bring necessary knowledge from other national STP cycles. Hence, the volume of outlays for research activity may be in no direct relation to the final results observed in the national technological performance.

Fig. 1.2. The process of technological build-up according to J. Ruszkiewicz Source: Adapted from J. Ruszkiewicz - Problemy planowania i zarzadzania w cyklu nauka-technika-produkcja, NOT, Warszawa 1977, p. 20

The model outlined above - a representative of the whole family of more or less similar conceptual constructions - is a typical static creature which permits us to understand how things run as soon as the relevant elements of an appropriate scientific-technical infrastructure have been created. It does not, however, explain how the relevant infrastructure is set up or, in other words, what steps are to be made on the way to the accomplishment of a national technological capability and what are the basic levels of this capability.

These questions gained particular importance in view of the needs of the developing countries plagued by severe technological backwardness.

It is no doubt therefore that they have been studied mainly by researchers working on industrialization processes in developing countries (7). Apparently one of the most interesting contributions has been offered by L.E. Westphal (8) and a group of other researchers cooperating with him in the course of the broad empirical research program launched by the World Bank at the end of the 1970s.

According to this approach, national technological capability, understood as "the ability to make effective use of technological knowledge", may be divided into three broad areas: production, investment and innovation (9). Technological capability is not acquired by a one shot operation. It is rather a painful and time consuming process that adds little by little to the overall technological development of a nation. Production capability comprises the knowledge and skills which are necessary for the successful operation of existing plants and production lines. It consists of a production management capacity, production engineering, repair, maintenance and marketing. Investment capability is composed of three interrelated components: 1. project preparation capability, comprising identification and selection of the technology which is best suitable for the local environment, 2. project execution capability, encompassing the knowledge and skills for the execution of the given development projects, and 3. the capital goods capability, i.e. the ability of manufacturing new machinery and equipment (see Table 1.1).

The third component of technological capability is an innovation capability, reflected in the nation's ability to create new products and processes and diffuse them throughout economic activity.

Table 1.1. Elements of Production, Investment and Innovation Capability

Production Capability (a)

Production management - to oversee the operation of established facilities

Production engineering (b) - to provide the information required to optimize the operation of established facilities, including:

* Raw material control - to sort and grade inputs, seek improved inputs

* Production scheduling - to coordinate production processes across products and facilities

* Quality control - to monitor conformance with product standards and to...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I. Setting the Analytical Framework
• Part II. Quantifying East-West Technology Transfer
• Part III. Dynamics of the CMEA Technological Position During the 1970s and 1980s
• Part IV. Technology Import and the Technology Gap: Major Findings and Conclusions
• Literature