In mid-May 1997, a financial crisis erupted in Asia after an attack by private investors on the baht, the Thai currency. The crisis spread quickly across the region, where investor confidence plummeted, resulting in massive capital outflows, stock market collapses, high unemployment, and even insurrection. The Asian economic miracle that had stimulated so much awe and even dread, now invoked pity and apprehension in greater measure. The contributors to this volume investigated change in the innovation and production systems of Asian states in response to economic and political upheaval. They conducted empirical studies of several regional industries - autos, semiconductors, and hard disk drives - and seven different national economies: China, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan. In the face of crisis and global competition, the Asian states superimposed change at the margins, seeking unique technohybrid solutions to build capabilities to compete in local, regional, and even global markets.

Production and innovation activities are being re-distributed across the world. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are proving the major engine of global growth, being less impacted by the financial crisis than developed economies or able to recover more quickly. Asia in the Global ICT Innovation Network takes a close look at the information and communication technologies (ICTs) landscape, not only in two BRICS countries, India and China, but also in South Korea and Taiwan. The book documents the size of the ICT sector for each of the selected countries, and assesses their R&D expenditure and its place in the international innovation network. The selected countries play a major role in shifting patterns of international trade and global value chains. The countries offer different historical profiles, with reforms dating back from the nineties for “Chindia and earlier policies for the “dragons , with later reforms focusing on IT. The book accounts for their specificity, and emphasises the fact that the four countries have achieved impressive results in terms of economic growth. The ICT sector was a major contributor to this growth and led a pioneering role for other sectors.This title consists of three parts: ICT in emerging economies, covering China and India; the return of the dragons, covering South Korea and Taiwan; and Network knowledge and trade, covering regional networks of R&D centres, India as an S&T cooperation partner, Asian countries in the global production network, and Asia in the process of internationalisation of ICT and R&D. Provides a well-supported look at the ICT sector in Asia, an area where extant literature consists mostly in a scattering of articles in various and heterogeneous journals Focuses on innovation Speaks to a growing interest in the role of emerging countries in ICT innovation

This empirically and conceptually rich volume identifies the emerging dynamics in the broader areas of science, technology and R&D in China and India by identifying the principal forces and actors at work that shape the new global division of labour in the internationalization of technology and innovation.

This important book develops an evolutionary conception of growth in East Asia, in which technology, organizations and institutions interact and co-evolve to advance productivity. Episodic crises are seen as disruptions which bring to the fore structural and institutional flaws that need reform. The author begins with a thorough analysis of the neo-classical theory of technical change and shows that it fails to capture crucial aspects of the various learning processes involved. He goes on to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding technological progress. Productivity growth is seen as deriving from knowledge hard-coded in equipment and structures, and soft-coded in human skill, organizations and institutions that guide economic activity. The role of exports in promoting faster growth is also examined, as are the channels of technological capability acquisition. This book will be welcomed by academics, policymakers, students, government bodies and business people interested in East Asian growth and in understanding technological change in general.

Significant changes are taking place in Asia which suggest that innovation will be the major engine of future economic growth in the region, particularly in China and India. This book draws upon substantial research and interaction with senior managers in Asia and argues that effective innovation in Asia will require specific ways of managing innovation that will be different from existing models and approaches