Economic Development & Technical Capabilities
Lecture
1) Three Elements to Technological Capabilities
Technological Capabilities refer to the ways that developing countries can
improve to keep up with the rest of the world. There are three major capabilities, and
they are production, project execution, and innovation.
• Capability 1: Production
• Countries that did production well – Japan, and East/SouthEast Asian countries.
• A good example of a company is Hyundai motors – their technological successes
come all from efficiency in their production process, with very little actual
innovation. Hyundai implemented a lot of modern inventory control, quality
control, and thorough training to ensure the quality of its product.
• One reason production is a successful way for underdeveloped countries to gain
industry is because it requires very little innovation to become a producer, as we
see from the Hyundai example.
• As an aside, how does a country make themselves attractive for outsourcing
from developed countries? The solution is “export processing zones.” These
zones have duty free imports, and are usually focused to have 100% of its
product exported out of the country. The main benefit for creating these “export
processing zones” is strictly employment. It was started in Japan during the
Korean war, when the United States wanted more companies in Japan to
strengthen its resistance to communism, as well as to get a closer footing near
North Korea. The companies that participate in the export processing zones are
almost always foreign multi-national companies.
• Capability 2: Project execution
• Project execution refers to the manner or process that new companies or
countries go about developing a new industry or product.
• Included things like pre-investment feasibility studies, project
management/engineering, basic engineering, procurement, constructing the
plant, acquiring the machinery, and starting the operation smoothly.
• Learning by doing is the only real way to acquire project execution skills. Let's
look back at the example of Hyundai again. In 1964 Hyundai began investing in
the cement industry back when they only did construction mainly as an exercise
for managers to learn project execution - by 1968 Hyundai was able to expand
much more because they became experienced in project execution skills that
they learned from building the cement plant.
• Capability 3: Innovation
• Didn't play as large a part in developing countries, because of the lack of
infrastructure.
• Some countries had moderate success in innovation, and their efforts are being
rewarded now (note the May 3rd article from the New York Times about the
United States losing its dominance in the sciences)
• Example of South Korea – in 1966, South Korea started the Ministry of Science
and Technology. At this time, Korea had roughly the same per capita as
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