Concepts and Methods of NIS Approach in the Context of Less-developed Economies*

The National Innovation Systems’ (NIS) perspective has relatively recently emerged in the schools of technological innovation economics and industrial dynamics, as an instrument employed in surveying the mechanics and dynamics of technological change, which is now widely accepted to be the major driving force to long-term economic growth and development. Learning and innovation, and the institutional bearing of learning and innovation are focusing points of analysis devised by the NIS perspective. While this analytic perspective has received high attention in advanced economies which is expected to be helpful in lending a new basis for policy analysis and policy formulation, it has been less studied and applied in the context of poor countries. Is this an analytical framework valid to the circumstances of economically backward countries? We believe that in principle the approach of NIS should be of more significance for analysing economic development in poor countries, since great changes have been more the routine there which are associated with their struggle towards a prosperous future, for them an analytical tool which focuses on dynamics and mechanics of development is urgently needed. However, an adaptation of the NIS approach is also needed, provided that problems and conditions faced by a underdeveloped economy are very different. With the aim to take a step towards identifying directions and areas in which adaptation or elaboration would be relevant, this paper reviews the concepts and methods of the NIS approach with reference to the context of economically less-developed economies. The organization of the paper is following. Section 1 reviews briefly the basic assumptions of the NIS approach. Sections 2 gives an explanation of economic backwardness from the perspective of innovation systems. Section 3 discusses methodological specialities in analysing innovation systems. The paper ends up, in section 4, with a summary as how to apply the NIS approach in developing countries.