Exports, University-Industry Linkages, And Innovation Challenges In Bangalore, India

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished.

State and the software: public policies in the shaping of the Indian software sector

“…Also, contrary to the argument that the Indian SW sector is primarily a result of wage arbitrage facilitated by abundant labour (Arora et al, 2001), 2 a view still sustained by D'Costa (2006), we contend that the SW sector evolved into a systemic process, wherein responses by individual actors, reinforced one another, and over a period of two decades has evolved into a sufficiently large and diverse sector, albeit varying in its innovative capabilities. The central argument of the paper is that the public policies and state interventions have contributed substantially to the dynamism and growth and evolution of India's SW sector.…”

India's National and Regional Innovation Systems: Challenges, Opportunities and Recommendations for Policy Makers

“…Recognizing that a capacity to innovate and commercialize is increasingly a key to economic growth, governments have created policies and practices to strengthen their national innovation systems (Nagaoka et al, 2009). Building on the recommendations from previous studies (Mani, 2004;D'Costa, 2006;CII, 2007;Dutz, 2007), other recommendations have been proposed in this section that could result in a higher rate of innovations and innovative activities. There is a need for necessary reforms to effect major change in the innovation system of India, but there are both social and cultural barriers, such as poor teamwork, the enduring importance of upward hierarchical progression, a "Brahminical" attitude that gives brainwork a superior position over physical work, a weak systems and strategic orientation, low tolerance for failure, a lack of confidence in innovation capabilities coupled with a failure to positively reinforce innovation efforts, and a strong need for control that gets in the way of cooperation with other organizations (Krishnan, 2010).…”

“…The drivers for innovation in the global context include the need for providing a radically better experience to clients/markets or customers (Doz et al, 2006;NASSCOM, 2007); competitiveness (Hamel and Prahalad, 2003;Prahalad and Hamel, 2003;Soete and Stephan, 2004;Arora, 2006;D'Costa, 2006;Kolaskar et al, 2007); the need for generating knowledge flows (Kolaskar et al, 2007); the desire for economic growth (Mokyr, 2002;Soete and Stephan, 2004); and the availability of skilled workers with low cost wages (Doz et al, 2006).…”

“…Incentives (Kolaskar et al, 2007;Goswami et al, 2008). † Lack of quality in education since the education system was established during the pre-independence era and emphasizes memorization rather than factual understanding (Mohanty, 1999;D'Costa, 2006). Lack of liberal arts education; instead, institutions restrict their focus to science, engineering or management categories.…”

“…Earlier studies have shown the importance of these industries in their contributions to innovation capacity. ICT (Arora and Athreye, 2002;D'Costa, 2006;Hung, 2009;Joseph, 2009;Athreye, 2010), pharmaceuticals (Kale and Wield, 2008;Thomas, 2008) and energy (Kristinsson and Rao, 2008) are some of the important industrial sectors previously studied extensively in comparison to telecommunications, healthcare and chemicals. Recently, India's economic development has been driven by the software and outsourcing sectoral system of innovation coupled with effective policy changes (Joseph, 2009).…”