Learning by firms: the black box of South Africa's innovation system

Jo Lorentzen

Science and Public Policy, 2009, vol. 36, issue 1, 33-45

Abstract: South Africa designed its post-Apartheid science and technology policies in the mould of the national innovation system approach. Yet policymakers knew little about the determinants of technological upgrading in latecomer firms either in the developing world more generally or in South Africa specifically. These two blind spots made for a veritable black box hiding the engines of innovation. Policy was designed around this black box and was thus largely and by necessity borrowed rather than learned. This paper describes why this is a problem and what can be done about it. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.3152/030234209X403262 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:scippl:v:36:y:2009:i:1:p:33-45

Access Statistics for this article

Science and Public Policy is currently edited by Nicoletta Corrocher, Jeong-Dong Lee, Mireille Matt and Nicholas Vonortas

More articles in Science and Public Policy from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().