Technology Support for Small Industries in Developing Countries: From 'Supply-Push' to 'Eightfold-C: '

The paper is a review of approaches towards technology support for small-scale manufacturing enterprises in developing countries since the 1970s. Early programmes tended to suffer from a number of weaknesses, emanating from inadequate conceptualisation of small firm' competitiveness and the role of the small-scale sector in industrial development, as well as from lack of practical experience with project implementation. However, in recent years important advancements have been made on all these fronts. The paper discusses eight characteristics of recent technology assistance programmes that have tended to be associated with project success. Broadly, successful projects are those that embrace the notion that durable competitiveness of small producers in a competitive economic environment requires that they develop internal capabilities to effectively asssimilate, use, and adapt product and process technologies on an ongoing basis. Key words: technology support, small-scale enterprises, technological capability, competitiveness, assistance projects, industrialisation.

Technology Development in Transition - The Case of Hungarian Industry -

The reform of 1989 exposed Hungarian industry to foreign competition and confronted it to the loss of the vast and undemanding COMECON market, the withdrawal of public support and the need for privatisation. Based on twenty-four interviews in pharmaceutical, electronics, automotive and textile companies, this paper gives insight into the efforts made by Hungarian industry to upgrade its technology in response to these pressures. The patterns found reflect the shift away from the old strategy of autarchic imitation of western technology based on own research and development towards catch-up through acquisition of western product and process know-how. The firms' modernisation activities were heavily driven by foreign investment and financial support from public agencies, but there are drawbacks associated with both, especially foreign investment which has in some cases contributed to the erosion of indigenous research capability. Science and technology institutions played an important role in the upgrading of industrial technology before the reform, but linkages with industry have eroded in the 1990s as a result of the drastic decline in state funding for science and technology and the financial crisis in industry. Financial support from the European Union for science and technology in the sample firms is reviewed and a number of suggestions are made for its improvement, so as to better reflect Hungary's current needs in the context of its increasing integration with the European Union.

Innovation for the base of the pyramid: Critical perspectives from development studies on heterogeneity and participation

This article criticises current BoP approaches for under-appreciating two issues that play vital roles in projects targeting the poor at the BoP: heterogeneity among the poor, and the intricacies of participatory partnerships between TNCs, the non-profit sector (NGOs) and local poor communities in the global south. Our main contention is that the extant BoP literature has a naive view of what working with the poor really involves, which grossly underestimates adverse power relationships and disregards the hierarchies between the poor and outsiders who administer development interventions. To unpack the hidden complexities associated with heterogeneity and partnership dynamics, we draw on extensive knowledge from the field of development studies, which has accumulated key insights about working in and with poorer communities over several decades.innovation and development, participation, poverty alleviation, TNCs

The Jatropha Biofuels Sector in Tanzania 2005-9: Evolution Towards Sustainability?

Biofuel production has recently attracted a great deal of attention. Some anticipate substantial social and environmental benefits, while at the same time expecting sound profitability for investors. Others are more doubtful, envisaging large trade-offs between the pursuit of social, environmental and economic objectives, particularly in poor countries in the tropics. The paper explores these issues in Tanzania, which is a forerunner in Africa in the cultivation of a bio-oil shrub called Jatropha curcas L. We trace how isolated Jatropha biofuel experiments developed since their inception in early 2005 towards a fully fledged sectoral production and innovation system; and investigate to what extent that system has been capable of developing ànd maintaining sustainable practices and producing sustainable outcomes. The application of evolutionary economic theory allows us to view the development processes in the sector as a result of evolutionary variation and selection on the one hand, and revolutionary contestation between different coalitions of stakeholders on the other. Both these processes constitute significant engines of change in the sector. While variation and selection is driven predominantly by localised learning, the conflict-driven dynamics are highly globalised. The sector is found to have moved some way towards a full sectoral innovation and production system, but it is impossible to predict whether a viable sector with a strong “triple bottom line” orientation will ultimate emerge, since many issues surrounding the social, environmental and financial sustainability still remain unresolved.biofuels, evolutionary theory, innovation systems, sustainability, stakeholder conflict, learning, Tanzania.

Determinants of Innovation Capability in Small UK Firms: An Empirical Analysis

The paper is an empirical investigation of key internal and external sources of innovation capability in small and medium firms (SME) in the UK. An experimental measure of innovation capability is designed, which captures not merely the occurrence of innovations but also their scientific complexity and originality. The results obtained with this measure compare favourably to those obtained with more conventional statistics. A range of factors internal to firms are found to be relevant, including owners' technical education and prior working experience in large firms and R&D institutions, technical skills of the workforce, and investments in R&D and training. Significant external factors are: public financial support for R&D, and interaction with nearby R&D and training institutions. Although interaction with customers, suppliers and similar-oriented firms are more frequent than the former, there is no evidence that intensive linkages of this kind would be important for innovative capability. These findings do not support the thrust of current UK policy, which seeks to promote SME innovative performance through the formation of geographical clusters of firms in similar lines of business

Technology Support for Small Industries in Developing Countries: From ´Supply Push´ to ´Eightfold-C´

The paper is a review of approaches towards technology support for small-scale manufacturing enterprises in developing countries since the 1970s. Early programs tended to suffer from a number of weaknesses, emanating from inadequate conceptualization of small firms’ competitiveness and the small-scale sector in industrial development, as well as from lack of practical experience with project implementation. However, in recent years important advancements have been made on all these fronts. The paper discusses eight characteristics of recent technology assistance programs that have tended to be associated with project success. Broadly, successful projects are those that embrace the notion that durable competitiveness of small producers in a competitive economic environment requires that they develop internal capabilities to effectively assimilate, use and adapt product and process technologies on an ongoing basis.Technology support, samll.scale enterprises, technological capability, competitiveness, assitance projects, industrialisation

Optimizing decision making in the global biofuel chain for sustainable development, by creating insight into trade-off between social, economic and environmental impacts, and how these affect actors in different locations and on different time scales.

Biofuels can provide a renewable and CO2 neural fuel, however biofuels are contested as the land needed to cultivate biofuels threatens food security. The market pull created by the European Biofuel Directive, that targets at a 10% obligatory blending in transport fuels by 2020, threatens food production and biodiversity in other continents, as for instance Africa, since Europe does not have the required land area neither the suitable climate. Sustainability criteria are defined, however, evidence is still lacking, as this new sector is still in the learning phase and data and expertise on best practices are being gathered. Furthermore, different actors within this global cultivation, production and usage chain have different priorities. Europe is targeting at mitigation of climate change, while Africa’s priorities are poverty reduction and conservation of soil fertility. Therefore it is important to operationalize the sustainability criteria in decision making by creating insight into the trade-off between the 3 dimension of sustainability; social (sustaining livelihoods in developing countries), economic (poverty reduction and profit making), and environmental (mitigation of climate change and conservation of soil fertility and biodiversity). Through mapping of the actor network and the distribution of costs and benefits (including externalities) in the entire chain, we will indicate where decisions can influenced. By combining this with the impact assessment we are creating insight into trade-offs and power relations for optimization of decision making. We will discuss the case of small holder jatropha farmers in Tanzania cultivating for export, based on years of research. Combined with our expertise on socio-economic modeling of the decision making processes, in this case strengthened with extensive literature research on jatropha biofuels as well as expert knowledge obtained through interviews, we will develop a decision support model for policy making in this global biofuel chain