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• Publish Date：2025/11/12
  Modify Date：2025/11/12

Why Do Some Countries Innovate Better than Others? A New Perspective of STI Policy Regimes and Knowledge Absorption Capacities

• Speaker：Hong-Ji Huang (Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica)
• Moderator：Chih-hsing Ho (Associate Research Fellow, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica)
• Time：12-2-2025 (Tue) 11:30
• Venue: 1F, Conference Room, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica
• Abstract：Innovation studies as an emerging scientific field have come into prominent spotlight in various research areas such as public policies, industrial development, and corporate strategies. Despite all the differences in scopes and levels of analysis, innovation studies seek to unravel the puzzle of why some individuals, firms, institutes, regions, and nations are better innovators.
                   Scholars in innovation studies mainly adopt a systematic approach to unravel the national innovation puzzle. The theory of national systems of innovation (NSI), along with its two extended models (the Triple-Helix model and National Innovative Capacity, NIC), mainly look into the institutional contexts in which innovative actors and innovating activities are embedded in. However, the existing theories lack a structural model of how cross-national STI (science, technology, and innovation) policies shape innovation processes. They overemphasize the role of institutions that do not fit well into policy subsystems controlled by governing arrangements. Moreover, they do not fully recognize a country as a whole constitutes the “national learning system” composed of knowledgeable learners and knowledge activities.
                   Given all these research gaps, I seek to answer the core research question regarding the structural and behavioral conditions that enable a country to innovate better. A conceptual model is conceived to examine the interactive dynamics of a country’s dual-regime structure in STI policies, dual-capacity in knowledge absorption, and the innovation outputs in exploration and exploitation. The dual-regime policy structure is mainly composed of democracy and meritocracy, each of which goes through different channels to enhance exploratory and exploitative innovation. The dual-capacity in knowledge absorption is mainly composed of a country’s absorptive capacity that carries potential and realized dimensions. This dual-capacity interacts with the dual-regime policy structure to further vitalize the latter’s effects on exploratory and exploitative innovation.
                   To test the conceptual model, I collect panel data on thirty-eight OECD countries from 2010-2022. All the dependent, explanatory, moderating, and control variables are operationalized with relevant indices regularly compiled by trustworthy international organizations. Further, I establish five statistical equations, each of which corresponds to a principal hypothesis. The conceptual model is solidly supported with fixed-effects panel regression on the sample data. Moreover, post-hoc analysis, including random-effects panel regression, the Hausman test, country-level scatter plots, and variance inflation factors, confirms the validity of the research methodology.
                   Existing innovation theories argue that for the purpose of enhancing innovation, a country should commit to R&D investments, set up proper institutions, and foster an innovator-friendly environment. The major contribution of my research is integrating structural and behavioral perspectives to depict a more panoramic picture on what should a country do to become a more accomplished innovator. With the appropriate STI policy structure and knowledge capacity well-established, a country faces no tradeoff nor the need to balance between exploration and exploitation. An ambidextrous STI policy structure, equipped with an ambidextrous knowledge agency, enables and empowers a country to be ambidextrous in innovation.