Workshop 10:
Methods of Economic Management and Systems
Friday 9 June at 13.15-14.45
Chair: Aki Koponen
Innovativeness of the Service Sector – the Role of Markets in the National Innovation System
Aki Koponen, Mikko Pohjola (Institute for Competition Policy Studies, Turku School of Economics, Finland)
The prerequisite of effective innovation activity, and hence the competitive advantage of regions and nations, is a creative innovation environment. It is universally acknowledged that the workability of the markets is a central factor for innovative products and processes. In addition, markets naturally create new institutions and new methods to overcome market failures and institutional rigidities. Therefore, creating an efficient and competitive innovation system requires the understanding of the characteristics of the market.
However, in the innovation system literature, and particularly in policy practice, markets haven’t been analyzed as an integral part of the innovation environment. This paper focuses on role of the creative market process in innovation systems, especially in the Finnish service sector’s innovation environment. The role of the market will be analyzed from two perspectives: firstly, the question of market formation and secondly the workability of the competition process. The question of market formation is vital, because a) markets in the Finnish service sector are undeveloped; b) especially product innovations require that the market signals are mediated efficiently.
The paper examines the role of the market in the innovative process underlining the importance of the institutional setting and the role of different actors in it. The paper introduces a systems approach of the market based on evolutionary and constitutional views of the market process. The main contributions of this paper are the theoretical interlinking of the innovation and market process in the context of the innovation environment of the service sector, and implications for innovation and technology policy.
Determination of Socio-Economic Development - Level of Regions by Territory Development Indexes
Edvins Vanags (Latvian Statistical Institute, Latvia), Oļģerts Krastins (Latvian Statistical Institute, Latvia)
Latvia has experience of determination of socio-economic development level of regions and local governments by using territory development indexes. The last are used for identification the assisted regions, differentiation of distribution of the state and local government co-financing to the EU Structural Funds projects, analysis and foresight of socio-economic development of regions and local governments.
For calculation of the level of socio-economic development of regions the eight statistical indicators, determined by experts, are used, such as GDP per capita; unemployment level; personal income tax volume per capita; non-financial investments per capita; demographic burden level per 1000 working age residents; number of working enterprises per 1000 residents; change in the number of residents, etc.
In order to make all indicators comparable and united in one general indicator a metrical system of standartisation of indicators was suggested with the following calculation of territorial development indexes.
The standartised indicators are calculated from initial indicators which are expressed in units of people, money, per cent or other real units. In the result of standartisation initial measuring units disappear, therefore different indicators become mutually comparable. Standard values are calculated in such a way: the difference between concrete value of indicator for concrete territory and the mean value of indicator in the group (rural municipalities, cities and towns, districts, regions) is divided by the standard deviation. Then standard values are multiplied with different weights of the importance of the indicator (from 0.05 to 0.3) and results are summed up. The final sum is the territory development index. The ranked territory development index shows the place of territory unit.
Regional Development on Nanotechnology through Patent Analysis
Maria Simone de M. Alencar (Information System of Chemical Industry – SIQUIM, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Claudia Canongia (National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality - INMETRO, Brazil), Adelaide M. S. Antunes (Information System of Chemical Industry – SIQUIM, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Nanotechnology is both enabling and horizontal; it impacts existing technologies and makes possible applications in a number of sectors. Over the last eight years, according to NSF data, global government investment in this area has increased nine-fold: from $432 million in 1997 to about $4.1 billion in 2005.
This paper presents a study of trends in nanotechnology, indicating regional development efforts, based on analyses of scientific publications from 17 countries, divided in two sets: seven key countries (USA, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, Canada and Spain) and ten competitor-countries (Brazil, India, China, Australia, South Africa, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Israel and Mexico) during the last decade. A search in the Web of Science database was undertaken, utilizing 51 terms selected by experts in nanotechnology. A master dataset with almost 140,000 registers was created and scientific indicators were produced through data and text mining tools and a competitive intelligence approach.
In the key countries, it was possible to discern the quantity of publications from the USA (21,769), followed by Japan (10,883), Germany (9,286) and France (6,147). Within the per country analysis, in the case of the USA, for example, three representative institutions were identified that most frequently use terms such as nanoparticulate, nanotube, quantum dot, nanocrystal and/or nanostructure. These were the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Illinois and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brazil represents 5.7% of the competitor-country publications, with 1066 papers, and quantum dot was the most frequently term used for the following representative Brazilian universities: the Universidade de São Paulo and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas.