Workshop series on the role of institutions in East Asian development: Institutional foundations of innovation and competitiveness in East Asia

The discussion paper summarizes the results of a workshop that focussed on the institutional foundations of innovation and competitiveness in East Asia. The following papers are contained: 'Transitional Institutions, Institutional Complementarities and Economic Performance in China. A "Varieties of Capitalism" Approach', 'The Current State of Research on Networks in China's Business System', 'Recent Changes to Korea's Innovation Governance', 'Standardization and Institutional Complementarities in Japan - Empirical Results from SAP R/3 Implementations in Japanese Automotive Suppliers'. --East Asia,Japan,China,Korea,institutional change,competitiveness,innovation

Has globalization strengthened South Korea's national research system?

노트 : The authors acknowledge a support from the SSK (Social Science Korea) Program funded by National Research Foundation of South Korea; NRF-2010-330-B00232

Ethics and taxation : a cross-national comparison of UK and Turkish firms

This paper investigates responses to tax related ethical issues facing busines

International Vertical Alliances within the International Business Field : A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Forecasting Brazilian economy: think tanks' proposals for economy and business management

This dissertation benchmarks a selection of Brazilian think tanks between them and similar international organizations, in order to understand Brazilian framework and identify the world’s megatrends regarding economy and business management. By analyzing their proposals, the goal is to assess if think tanks in Brazil are following the megatrends or distancing from them. Included in the benchmarking between Brazilian organizations, authors and co-author’s profiles, as well as the administration staff’s personalities, are also scrutinized in order to comprehend the real extent of these organizations influence and independence.Esta dissertação compara uma selecção de think tanks brasileiros entre si e outras organizações similares, com o objetivo de compreender o panorama brasileiro e idenficar as megatendências mundiais no que diz respeito à economia e à gestão de empresas. Ao analisar as suas propostas, o objetivo passa por compreender se os think tanks brasileiros estão a seguir as megatendências ou a distanciar-se delas. Incluído no benchmarking das organizações brasileiras, os perfis dos seus autores e co-autores, bem como da sua staff administrativa, são também alvo de escrutínio para que seja possível entender a verdadeira extensão da sua influência e independência

The Cultural Frame Management: The Emergence of Cultural Intelligence in Chinese IT Service Vendors

As China transforms itself toward a leading destination for global IT service outsourcing, major Chinese vendors increasingly face the challenge of collaborating simultaneously and effectively with three major client bases with diverse national cultural backgrounds, namely domestic, Asia especially Japan, and the West especially the U.S. and Western Europe. This provides a good opportunity to study how firm-level cultural intelligence is formed within vendors. To explore this question, qualitative case studies of twelve leading China-based IT service vendors, including all of the most globally recognized Chinese vendors, were conducted. Based on interviews with top and middle level managers, and drawing on the practice-oriented view of culture and the cultural frame perspective, this paper develops the notion of collective cultural frame and identifies the process of cultural frame management within the vendor. This process functions as a mechanism by which firm-level cultural intelligence emerges within vendor organizations

Contentious Narratives on National Identity of South Korea: How to Understand the Self and the Significant Others, North Korea and the United States

At the time of writing, the expectation for a peace settlement on the Korean peninsula is greater than ever due to ongoing inter-Korean summits as well as the historic encounters between the two leaders of the US and North Korea. Although the second Hanoi DPRK-US summit in February, 2019 ended without reaching an agreement, it is still a positive sign that formerly hostile nations are willing to talk to find a way of coexistence. However, at the same time, the degree of inner conflict within the South has grown significantly since the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye in 2017, and there exist deep discrepancies over how to approach and how to pursue cooperation with the North. The dissertation examines how and why a variety of reforms led by the progressive administrations of South Korea, ranging from foreign policies toward the North and the US to domestic policies, have intensified social conflicts and division, rather than contributing to the conflict transformation and reconciliation that they originally aimed at. In doing so, this research contributes to the field of identity politics and peacebuilding by offering novel insights into the role of narrative identity and history in contexts of protracted, identity-based conflict, and the peacebuilding process. Its particular focus is on the Korean peninsula, one of the areas where the legacy of the Cold War is still lingering and history is deeply contested and politicized. This study primarily claims that the social and political polarization within South Korea stems from fundamental disagreements over two important concepts in the formation of national identity: 1) the self, how to define South Korea, which means whether the birth of a South Korean government should be celebrated as a lawful and legitimate process, or treated as failure to establish one united nation; and 2) the significant others, the question of how to identify North Korea and the US. The research highlights the fact that narratives on the national identity of South Korea were initially crafted in the context of intractable conflicts with the North. Narrative identities created during or after the war have been formed with a strong certainty of the good self and evil others, thus being resistant to change. In particular, the narrative of conservatives was formed with the firm certainty about the North as an evil enemy. Thus, those who see the reality of the nation through the lens of this narrative find it extremely difficult to adapt to the alternative that identifies the North as a normal neighboring state with which to coexist. Secondly, this study argues that it is identity politics, in which the rhetoric of othering/exclusion is frequently applied, that has significantly affected the intensification of social and political polarization in South Korea through creating a dichotomy of good self and evil others. Both narratives have constructed antagonism toward their own hostile “others”: North Korean sympathizers, whether called pro-North, the reds, commies, or anti-South forces, in the “state-centered nationalism narrative” of conservatives that identifies the North as an arch enemy; and anti-nationalists, including pro-Japanese and pro-American collaborators, and ruling elites, in the “ethnic nationalism narrative” of progressives that views the North as part of the self based on the ethnic notion of the Korean nation, and thus as a partner for coexistence and ultimately for unification. More importantly, both of these contradictory narratives have been politicized to delegitimize political opponents, consequently intensifying societal and political conflicts within South Korea. Lastly, the study maintains that reforms led by progressive regimes failed to create an open and inclusive “dialogical space” where competing parties can reassess and redefine their narratives in the process of policy decision making and its enactment, thus deepening conflicts. Establishing a positive domestic context toward peace through creating consensus and cooperation with those who have different values and ideologies is a necessary condition for conflict transformation and peace settlement on the peninsula. Attempts to transform the master narrative on the national identity of South Korea led by progressive regimes without efforts to engage in cooperation with their political opponents have simply replaced an old narrative with a new one, rather than constructing a transcendent and integrative narrative on which conflicting parties can agree. Hence, conservatives’ resistance to narrative transformation and related policy changes has grown intensified. The present study can not only contribute to extending generality in the study of the narrative basis of conflict, but also offer theoretical grounds for rethinking inner conflicts in South Korea to lead to conflict transformation and an ultimate peace settlement on the Korean peninsula. We have seen in post-conflict societies like Germany or Northern Ireland that a political declaration or peace agreement does not necessarily lead to genuine peaceful relations and reconciliation between the former adversaries. This justifies the argument that the narrative of rightists in South Korea who construct a strong national identity that still views the North as an arch enemy should be taken into consideration in advancing peaceful relations with the North. It is a challenging task to transform narrative identity with firm certainty based on a dichotomy of good self and evil other crafted in the context of intractable conflicts. In the process of the engagement policy toward the North and peace initiatives on the peninsula, however, some degree of consensus and cooperation between conflicting groups in South Korea who have radically different conceptions of national identity is a prerequisite for ultimate peace settlement between the two Koreas

Measuring research performance in international collaboration

Chinchilla-Rodríguez, Zaida; Miguel, Sandra; Perianes-Rodríguez, Antonio. (2016). Measuring research performance in international collaboration. 14th International Congress of Information, Info '2016. La Havana, Cuba, October 31- November 4, 2016.International collaboration in the creation of knowledge is responsible to change the structural stratification of science having profound implications for the governance of science. Analysis of collaboration in Latin American and Caribbean countries is of particular significance, because initiatives are often the result of “research-for-aid” arrangements, generally based on North–South asymmetries. However, collaboration for mutual benefit and excellence has gained increasing acceptance, with “partner” selection becoming a strategic priority to enhance one’s own production. The general aim of this study is to quantify the benefit rate in visibility and impact of scientific production in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology (NST) bearing in mind the different types of output (total, in leadership, excellent, and excellent with leadership) of the six main producers of knowledge in NST in Latin America in the period 2003-2013. More specifically we aspire to visualize the networks of international collaboration in a given country (ego-network) to represent the difference between the citations received per type of output, and identify the associates with whom a country has greater potential and capacity to generate knowledge of high quality, as well as the differences existing in terms of visibility depending on the type of production analyzed. In short, we wish to determine the benefits of such collaborative efforts. In this way we could respond to questions such as: a) With which countries is collaboration established? and b) With which collaborating countries are the greatest volume of citations per document obtained, according to the type of output.This work was made possible through financing by the Project NANOMETRICS (Ref. CSO2014-57770-R) supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of SpainPeer reviewe

Technology transfer, policies, and the role of the private sector in the global poultry revolution:

"With the Biotech Revolution, questions are being asked about what role the government should play in the process—does public research in developing countries play a role? Can governments speed the spread of technology by offering complementary services? Unlike the public investment–driven Green Revolution in cereals, the “Poultry Revolution” in developing countries was driven by the successful transfer of biological technology developed by the private sector in the developed world to developing countries. This paper uses a supply response function to measure the importance of different types of private technology and of public investments on poultry productivity. The findings confirm that imported private technology was important to the growth of the poultry industry but also emphasize the importance of complementary government investments such as veterinary services." from authors' abstractsupply response function, private sector research, Technology transfer, Poultry, Public investment,

REINVENTING INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT POLICY IN BUILDING INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVENESS

As liberalization and globalization gather pace, some developing countries cope well but the majority do not. Diverging industrial competitiveness is one of the causes of the growing disparities in income: the potential that globalization offers for industrial growth is being tapped by a relatively small number of countries, while liberalization is driving the wedge between them and laggards deeper. This paper examines two approaches to this problem: neoliberal and structuralist. The neoliberal approach is that the best strategy for all countries and in all situations is to liberalize. Integration into the international economy, with resource allocation driven by free markets, will let them realise their .natural. comparative advantage, optimize dynamic advantage and yield the maximum attainable growth. No government intervention can improve upon this but will only reduce welfare. The structuralist approach puts less faith in free markets and more in the ability of governments to mount interventions effectively. It questions the theoretical and empirical basis for the argument that untrammelled market forces account for the industrial success of the East Asian Tigers (or the presently rich countries). Accepting the mistakes of past strategies and the need for greater openness, it argues that greater reliance on markets also needs a more proactive role for the government. The paper reviews the nature of current globalization and evidence on the growing divergence in competitive performance in the developing world. It goes on to consider the case for industrial policy, arguing that interventions are necessary to overcome market failures in building the capabilities required for industrial development. The approach adopted draws on evolutionary theories of technical change as applied to development in the technological capability approach. The paper then describes the strategies adopted by the Asian Tigers to build industrial competitiveness, pointing out the pervasiveness of selective interventions and significant strategic differences between them. The paper concludes with lessons for other developing countries: the kinds of industrial policy needed in the current international setting are clearly different from the traditional forms of inward-looking industrialisation strategies of the early post-war era, but globalization and technical change do not eliminate the need for intervention. On the contrary, given path dependence, cumulativeness and agglomeration economies, they increase the need. There is therefore a compelling need to reconsider the rules of the game constraining the exercise of industrial policy, and for international assistance in designing and implementing appropriate policies.