Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Gu, Shulin
Author-Email: Gu@intech.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: United Nations University, Institute for New Technologies
Title: China's National Innovation System Approach to Participating in Information Technology: The Innovative Recombination of Technological Capability
Abstract: This paper examines the development of the Chinese electronics and information
	 industry (IT) during the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, aimed to explain,
	 from the perspective of endogenous factors, how a less developed economy gets
	 access to the so called information revolution in a period with dramatic changes in
	 technological, institutional and policy aspects entailed by market reform and trade
	 liberalization. The endogenous factors are analyzed as embodied in a national
	 innovation system, they interact with each other in response to the challenges and
	 opportunities coming from opening to international participation and moving in
	 market competition. The paper suggests a different approach of IT development
	 emerged from the Chinese experiences which is more application-driven, in contrast
	 to the early experiences in the first tier of 'Newly Industrializing Economies'
	 (NIEs) which began with electronics manufacturing, and was more export-led.
	 Capability accumulations from the past investment and the widespread diffusion of
	 the related technology are identified attributable for the new IT development
	 trend. The paper calls for attention to the 'innovative recombination of
	 technological capability' that characterizes the application-driven approach in
	 which accumulated capabilities are dynamically combined with the newly learned, a
	 process that involves radical institutional restructuring and intensive
	 technological learning.
Keywords: Information Technology, Innovations, Technology Policy, National Policy, China
Series: Discussion Paper
Creation-Date: 1997
Number: 01
File-URL: http://www.intech.unu.edu/publications/discussion-papers/9701.pdf
File-Format:application/pdf
File-Size:  218 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unuint:199701