Learning By Doing

Science And Technology In The Developing World

Aaron Segal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367156053
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429709524
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Science and technology capabilities are crucial to the economic growth of developing countries and to their ability to compete in the world economy. What factors enable some countries to successfully adapt technology to create indigenous capabilities and what factors cause others to fail? In this first global survey of science and technology capabilities in developing countries, the authors examine the experiences of Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, China, India, and East Asia. Specialists in science and technology policies in these regions emphasize learning by doing: using available science and technology in its various applications--the shop floor, universities, and research institutes--to eventually develop indigenous capabilities. The authors consider why such capabilities have emerged in some societies but not in others and discuss their importance for domestic and international relations. Also considered are the implications of the "learning by doing" process for international relations, international trade, regional studies, science and technology policy, and management studies. This unique survey will interest a large audience, from technology policymakers and regional specialists to business managers, and officials. It will serve as a reference guide to the current state of science and technology policies in every region of the world and as a framework for analyzing and understanding how science and technology capabilities are being developed.

1 Learning by Doing

DOI: 10.4324/9780429036040-1

Aaron Segal

Many are called but few are chosen. Almost all of the 162 independent nation-states in the world have governments committed to the objective of developing indigenous science and technology capabilities. However research and development remains concentrated in North America, Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, and the Soviet Union (Tables 1.1 and 1.2). Only a handful of countries have been able to successfully proceed from the transfer of technology to the establishment and extension of indigenous science and technology generating capabilities.

This chapter examines what is involved in a given country or group of countries making the transformation from being importers of technology to having local science and technology strengths. It asks how the technology transfer process can be used to foster indigenous capabilities. It looks comparatively at the experiences of many developing countries, which are considered in detail in later chapters. The raw material consists of the failures and successes of many countries over lengthy periods of time.

Reprinted by permission of the publisher from The Political Economy of International Technology Transfer, John R. McIntyre and Daniel S. Papp, eds. (Quorum Books, a division of Greenwood Press, Inc., Westport, CT, 1986), pp. 95-116. Copyright (c) 1986 by John R. McIntyre and Daniel S. Papp.

TABLE 1.1 Global Distribution of Research and Development Capacity, 1973

Region	Funds (billion dollars)	Share of World Total (percent)	Scientists, Engineers in R & D (thousand)	Share of World Total (percent)
Developing countries	2.77	2.9	288	12.6
Africa (with South Africa)	0.30	0.3	28	1.2
Asia (without Japan)	1.57	1.6	214	9.4
Latin America	0.90	0.9	46	2.0
Developed countries	93.65	97.1	1,990	87.4
Eastern Europe (with USSR)	29.51	30.6	730	32.0
Western Europe (with Israel and Turkey)	21.42	22.2	387	17.0
U.S.A. and Canada	33.72	35.0	548	24.1
Other (with Japan and Australia)	9.01	9.3	325	14.3
World total	96.42	100.0	2,279	100.0

Note: More recent global data is not available. Source: Jan Annerstedt, Worldwatch Papers 31, Washington, DC, 1979

TABLE 1.2 Research and Development in the Western Hemisphere, 1980

Country	Researchers (full-time equivalent)	R & D Expenditures (US $ million)	R & D (% of GDP)	Technology Exports as % of Total Exports
USA	600,000	$ 65 billion	2.5	60
Canada	35,000	$1.2 billion	1.1	30
Brazil	12,000	$800 million	0.8	25
Mexico	8,000	$600 million	0.7	15
Argentina	7,000	$400 million	0.6	20
Venezue1a	3,000	$250 million	0.4	5
Colombia	2,000	$ 90 million	0.3	15
Chi le	2,000	$ 75 million	0.2	15
Cuba	1,500	$ 50 mi11ion	0.25	5

Note: The other 20 independent states of the Western Hemisphere each have 500 or fewer researchers, spend $10 million a year or less on R & D with these expenditures accounting for less than 0.1% of gross domestic product, while technology exports are 0-20% of total exports. The science and technology problems of the smaller states are thus of a fundamentally different nature. This table represents very crude estimates based on data from national science and technology plans, OECD, UNESCO, and National Science Foundation sources. There is little data on “shop-floor” industrial R & D in Latin America and it is probable that private sector R & D has been underestimated. Source: Aaron Segal, Science, Technology and Western Hemisphere Governance, Aspen Institute Background Paper, 1982.

The methodology used is historical, empirical, and cross-cultural. It benefits from an extensive literature on both technology transfer and domestic science and technology (S & T) capabilities.¹ It utilizes available case studies of national experiences and seeks explicitly to extract from these diverse data some cross-cultural generalizations for which more than national applicability may be claimed. It is subject to the pitfall that national experiences are inherently sui generis, so that what worked in Japan may be irrelevant to India or vice-versa. However, it does not posit that there is one superior road to take in going from importing technology to achieving local S & T strength. It suggests, though, that there are several learnable dos and don'ts for policy-makers no matter what road they choose.

The transfer of technology is a constant of human history. Most societies have been at different times net exporters and net importers of technology. However, since the eighteenth century, Western Europe and then North America and later J...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents Page
• List of Tables and Figures Page
• List of Contributors Page
• Acknowledgments Page
• 1 Learning by Doing
• 2 Latin America: Development with Siesta,
• 3 The Caribbean: Can Lilliput Make It?
• 4 The Middle East: What Money Can't Buy,
• 5 Africa: Frustration and Failure
• 6 East Asia: Pathways to Success
• 7 China: The Search for Strategies,
• 8 India: Success and Failure,
• Index