Asia is becoming a stronghold for innovation careers along with its resurgence in economic, political, and cultural arenas. This transformation happened on the backdrop of growing enrolments in higher education, increasing investments in scientific research & innovation, and innovation supportive policy measures by several Asian countries. Research and Development (R&D) and product customization centres of multinational corporations (MNCs) sited in emerging nations are also instrumental in this transformation.
This paper analyzes the impact of the change in telecommunication regulation changes including the unification of telecommunication service on network investment. The unification of telecommunication service plays a role of separating behavior regulation from entrance regulation and reducing entrance constraints. Therefore, it is expected that the market spillover effect is high through the improvement of behavior regulation. In addition, the effects of the other regulation changes in the 2010 Telecommunications Business Act revision are analyzed. This paper discusses critical factors affecting the decision making process in respect to the firm level and analyzes the impact path guiding investment and innovation. The key findings are as follows. First, the impact of entrance deregulation depends on the intensity of deregulation. If the intensity is not high, this regulation increases the incentive on investment and innovation. However, if the intensity is high as shown in abolishing of licensing, it affects the incentive negatively. Second, if interconnection regulation focuses on existing facilities or the intensity is not strong, this light handed regulation might increase investment and innovation. However, if interconnection obligation is expanded to the facility not constructed or the facility applying new technology, this regulation might deteriorate investment. Third, price deregulation increases the competition of service but it also increases the business opportunity, which means positive effect on investment. Finally, the paper proposes the guideline for telecommunications policy.
Studies on innovation point towards the need for both in-house research and development (R&D) capabilities along with collaborations with external organisations or linkages with other firms, universities and research institutes. The argument is that innovation is not just a firm specific factor but requires support from several other factors which in turn involves developing linkages with various actors/institutions as sources of resources and/or knowledge for innovation. This paper presents findings from an exploratory study about the Malaysian biofuel sector as an innovation system. Instead of using the neo-classical approach and proposing policy interventions based on traditional market failure rationale (Bergek et al., 2008a), the functional analysis of the technological innovation systems (TIS) approach is used to analyse the biofuel sector in Malaysia to help reveal the strengths and weaknesses in terms of its fulfillment of seven critical functions which are necessary for the generation and commercialization of a product. In addition an attempt is made to reveal the inducement and blocking mechanisms affecting the Malaysian biofuel TIS and the seeking of improved poor functionality. These functional aspects of the Malaysian biofuel sector are analysed in different phases of its development to gain an understanding of the different institutions and their functions at different phases of the development of the innovation system.
Estimating the economic life of a technology is the first important prerequisite step in the feasibility analysis of technology-based business. Many empirical studies have concentrated on patents data to estimate the time period for a technology. However, it is recommended to estimate it along with qualitative considerations of future technological and market conditions. In this regard, little is known about how approaches are applied. This paper aims to establish a structural framework of estimating the lifetime of a technology by integrating the outputs of an analysis of the determinants in each transition of a product life cycle. We describe an illustrative case about a light emitting diode (LED) backlight unit (BLU) technology for the liquid crystal display (LCD) TV. The framework allows valuators and experts to estimate a technology lifetime by using multidimensional factors.
In this age of convergence, a combinative nature of innovation is in need of revisiting. The innovation based on combination is named “combinative innovation” and defined operationally as the innovation that combines different modes of combinations. Five modes are characterized and the framework is applied to the case of CDMA mobile phone development of Samsung Electronics Company in the 1990s. The case study demonstrates the usefulness of the framework and the future direction of further elaboration of the framework.