• STI Policy Review
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.23-42
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• 2010

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), known widely as the "stimulus" bill, developed by the U.S. Congress and President-elect Obama in late 2008 and early 2009, is investing a significant portion of its $787 billion infusion of funds in future-oriented programs intended not only to "jump-start" the stalled American economy, but to promote the development of renewable energy sources and increase energy efficiency in appliances, buildings, transportation, and other sectors of the economy. These investments are expected both to create immediate employment in green industries and to build a more sustainable society in the long term. The Obama Administration's green energy initiatives are part of a larger emphasis on science and technology within its agenda. It has roots in the Obama campaign and is supported by an unusually strong science and technology team. Much of the activity is centered in the Department of Energy, which received a huge one-time increase in its fiscal year 2009 budget to support the new and expanded programs. Areas that have been neglected by the federal government R&D program for many years, including smart grid technology, solar, wind, and geothermal energy, received large boosts. Many of these programs - and, in fact, the broader concept of government involvement in commercial innovation - are politically controversial Previous attempts to expand research in these areas by liberal Democratic administrations and Congresses have been criticized and sometimes thwarted by conservatives. Whether President Obama's efforts will meet with more success, both politically and technologically, remains to be seen.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-29
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• 2018

With the constant growth of R&D investment, it has been increasingly necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of R&D performance and there is a high emphasis on ensuring the accountability and effectiveness of R&D programs. The evaluation of performance of a firm is especially necessary in times of economic downturn to justify R&D investment. However, there is a marked shortage of clear guidelines as to where and how particular metrics are used to measure the output and outcome of R&D activity in firms. Many firms have difficulties in selecting appropriate indicators for their R&D and financial performances. To fill this gap, this article discusses and presents the findings from the literature in such a way that they become useful for researchers or managers who are in charge of measuring the R&D and business performances arising from innovation activities. Finally, based on the findings about metrics of R&D performance, this article proposes the hypothetical framework to investigate the relationship between technology forecasting, strategic technology planning, and business performance. The framework of this article will assist policy makers, universities, research institutes/national laboratories, and companies to enhance their decision making process in technology development.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.25-37
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• 2010

Advances in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) have demonstrated tremendous potential for solving development challenges and improving development processes, culminating in the new Development 2.0. Many development practitioners have embraced ICT (particularly on Web 2.0 and mobile phone technologies and applications), which have become hot topics in both the development community and the policy community as they engage in development practice and dialogue. Despite this excitement, there lacks among the policy community a robust understanding of the powers and pitfalls of ICT in development, executed actions to back the excited chatter, and dissemination of this understanding to practitioners and policymakers alike. We conducted a literature review, interviewed experts, and engaged in discussion with leaders in international development and science and technology policy to provide an operational framework base in which to view ICT in development. This framework regards ICT as tools that support more effective and efficient community development actions and appropriate consideration of general guidelines, which enable better engagement across and within sectors and individuals. Flexibility and accountability are critical requirements pervading throughout the various actions and guidelines, which promote transparent, partnership-based, and sustainable development. We highlight the strengths and weaknesses of ICT to focus on the cautions to keep ICT access and distribution in context, understand the various levels of technologies and services, and dig below the surface as excitement about ICT increases and threatens to become a short-term solution. We offer ideas for specific programs that policymakers can implement to contribute to a more efficient and effective development process to ultimately support global human development, but stress the endless possibilities that can be explored with creativity and flexibility beyond what is proposed here.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.111-129
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• 2012

The integration of products and services is being expanded in both manufacturing and service companies such as in Apple's iPod & iTunes, Amazon's Kindle, and Hyundai Motor Company's Mozen. This phenomenon has recently accelerated due to multiple factors including market change, lessening of differences in quality of products or services, the paradigm of participation and sharing, and deindustrialization and evolution toward becoming a service economy. The objective of this paper is to investigate and analyze the status and characteristics of integration of products and services in Korean firms and to suggest policy directions promoting this integration. Towards this purpose, income statements from the Korea Listed Companies Association (KLCA) database of companies listed on the Korea Stock Exchange are analyzed regarding the servitization of manufacturing firms as well as the productization of service firms. In addition, this research investigates the Korean Innovation Survey 2011 database for the service sector and 2010 database for the manufacturing sector in order to evaluate R&D activity in each. In the manufacturing sector, the average ratio of service sales (servitization) was low at 0.208, with bias in the level and distribution of ratios associated with the manufacturing sector. 18 out of a total of 23 sectors (78%) have low servitization, showing there's a long way to go for servitization in the Korean manufacturing sector. In the service sector, the average ratio of product sales (productization) was 9.53%, which is relatively high compared to that of the manufacturing sector. However, the distribution of ratios is also biased, as with the manufacturing sector. Based on this analysis, policy directions are proposed in terms of 1) R&D, 2) concept boost, 3) R&D result spread, 4) statistics, 5) infrastructure and 6) green growth.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.92-110
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• 2012

An active policy role is suggested for collaboration that will enhance national level Science and Technology (S&T) capabilities. In contrast, some studies see a limited role of policy support for collaborative S&T research at the individual level (including research groups or institutional levels) due to their self-organizing nature. Two views on S&T collaboration look at different levels but existing research largely ignores the context of developing countries. This paper shows how S&T collaborations between Brazil and Korea have developed over the past two decades. The paper indicates the gaps between initiation and the actual establishment of collaborative research at national and individual levels, differences in the focus areas of research, differences in resources and project planning, and the nature of collaborations. Collaborative research activities at the national level were initiated before the individual level but activated later than the individual level; in addition, the focus areas of research were laid down earlier at the national level with individual collaborations focused on different areas. Project types remained different at each level (i.e. top-down and bottom-up) or with a slightly changing mix. This study suggests appropriate policy measures (such as the timely and effective information collection of activities at different levels and proactive coordination) that could reduce the gaps in the timing and alignment of research areas. This paper also alludes to an evolutionary model to develop S&T collaboration among developing countries.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.54-86
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• 2015

The study examines the U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, with a focus on the recent Reauthorization, and compares, in the political context, the U.S. and East Asian countries-Japan, Korea and Taiwan-that adopted the U.S. SBIR program. For the systematic analysis and cross-country comparison, the study employs Kingdon (2003)'s framework-his political theory and Garbage Can Model-to identify political participants and processes underlying the SBIR Reauthorization and to analyze the differences in problem, policy, and politics streams between the U.S. and East Asian countries. For the cross-country comparison, specifically, the study uses various data sources such as OECD, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions, and World Value Survey. Based on the analysis outcomes, implications of U.S. practices on East Asian countries are extracted as follows. East Asian countries tend to: Have higher entrepreneurial aspiration while lower entrepreneurial activity and attitude than the U.S.; bear higher long term orientation and uncertainty avoidance while lower individualism than the U.S.; and have greater expectations of technology development and higher confidence in political parties while participating less in political action than the U.S. Drawing on the differences, the following policy recommendations are suggested. East Asian countries should: Improve entrepreneurs' access to resources (in particular, financial resource) in order to link their high entrepreneurial aspiration to actual entrepreneurial activities; cultivate failure-tolerating culture and risk-taking entrepreneurs, for instance, by providing a second chance to SBIR-participating businesses that failed to materialize their innovative ideas; and leverage their high expectations of new technology in order to take bold actions regarding their SBIR programs, and update the programs by drawing out constructive dialogues between SBIR stakeholders.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.27-53
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• 2013

Technology research and development (R&D) expenditures have increased as most countries recognize that technological innovation is a significant factor for continued economic growth. R&D subsidies by governmental entities were permitted in accordance with the Subsidy and Countervailing Measure (SCM) Agreement under the World Trade Organization (WTO) system. However, according to Article 31 of the SCM Agreement the provision for R&D subsidies have been terminated as of January 2000 and legal disputes over R&D subsidies are likely to increase. The aircraft industry has been the only industry where R&D subsidies have become an issue under the WTO. This paper examines international trade disputes within the aircraft industry in regards to measures by Canada and bilateral disputes between the U.S. and the European Communities (EC). In these cases, various R&D subsidies on civil aircraft are found to be inconsistent with WTO rules. This study summarizes the WTO decisions on various R&D subsidies disputed in the aircraft cases and examines the type of R&D subsidies found to be inconsistent (or consistent) with the WTO to provide guidelines for current and future R&D subsidy policies in high-tech industries. The Canada-Aircraft case indicates that R&D subsidies directly targeted towards near market R&D projects with a high export potential will likely be in violation of current WTO rules. Furthermore, findings from the EC-Aircraft and the U.S.-Aircraft cases suggest that the forms (or the methods) of R&D subsidy distribution were not a sufficient condition for the WTO ruling; instead, what ultimately mattered was whether and specifically to whom the benefits of the R&D subsidies are conferred by the government entities.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.60-84
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• 2016

What impact does the sharing economy have on existing businesses? This paper empirically examines how Uber transformed the taxi industry in New York City. Using a regression model controlling various potential influencing factors, we find no direct evidence that daily trips or revenue per taxi driver decreased since Uber entered the taxi industry. However, a closer investigation into other dimensions of taxi trips reveals that taxi drivers were forced to change their way of doing businesses to retain existing daily trips and revenue. Since Uber crowded out yellow taxis from the central area of Manhattan, yellow taxis responded by serving customers outside of the Manhattan borough. From enlarging their geographical coverage and serving customers that were previously ignored, yellow taxis were able to retain their previous level of taxi trips and market share. We also find that yellow taxis responded by improving their service quality to better serve customers' needs. Our result suggests that incumbents actively responded to Uber's entry and provided substantial benefit to consumers. Combined with the incumbent's response, the sharing economy transformed the existing market in a welfare-enhancing way. This paper provides managerial and policy implication on how incumbents affected by the disruptions of the sharing economy should respond. Even though it might be yet premature to examine the impact of Uber, results suggest that incumbents have effectively defended against Uber's entry so far. We conclude that the sharing economy and the existing economy can create positive value in our society through well-intentioned competition, complementing each other's weaknesses and strengths.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.46-62
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• 2012

This study investigates the effects of the two most important indicators of a nation's state of scientific infrastructure: R&D investment and the number of R&D researchers engaged in high-tech product export competitiveness for a panel of 11 countries/economies from East Asia from 1994 to 2010. A GMM panel estimation method was employed to account for the dynamic effect of trade and to control for un-observed country specific effects that may arise due to an inter-country differences and intra-country dynamics. Accordingly, the empirical results reveal that (once controlled for the influence of per capita income) physical capital and infrastructure, a 1% increase in a country's expenditure on the ratio of R&D to GDP may increase high-tech product export performance by approximately $397 million per year. Other factors constant, a 1% increase in the number of R&D researchers is expected to increase the ability to export high-tech products by approximately $67 million. The East Asian development experience demonstrates how latecomers can follow systematic industrialization and join the handful of economies that have come a long way toward closing the knowledge gap with the global technological leaders. However, this does not mean that the policy approaches and overall commitments pursued by each East Asian economy in relation to R&D investment and acquisition of an adequate pool of researchers, and their ultimate achievements in high-tech product export competitiveness were uniform. As a result, there is still a significant variation among countries/economies in terms of performance. This study recommended a number of potential tools and policy instruments that may assist policy makers to foster R&D as an engine to enhance the high-tech product export competitiveness.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.79-91
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• 2012

With the globalisation of the world's economies and the increasing role of multinational corporations in the generation of knowledge, global research and development (R&D) activities in emerging countries are following a new trend. This paper describes case studies of two large companies and discussion of the motives (demand vs. supply) and tasks (demand-driven vs. supply-driven) of R&D activities outside their home country. This work is based on an analysis of four overseas R&D units of two Korean ICT companies - here, ICT refers to goods and services in the information technology and communication technology fields - in India and China. The research findings are as follows: (1) The overseas R&D activities of Korean ICT enterprises in emerging countries may be driven by a combination of demand and supply factors of host countries; and (2) Korean overseas R&D centres in emerging countries may need to carry out both demand- and supply-driven tasks in view of the overlap between demand and supply factors of the host countries. Based on the results of this research, the following policy implications can be drawn for encouraging more effective overseas R&D activities of Korean enterprises in emerging countries. First, the government needs to expand the support systems so that enterprises can manage local R&D centres more effectively and actively use the variety of local support systems and useful information. Second, the government needs to expand the support systems so that the overseas R&D centres of Korean enterprises revitalise collaborations with locally excellent universities and research institutions.