Valoraciones de la democracia en la pandemia

The final review section, first of all, poses the need for radical enhancement of an exploratory mode of learning for transition in science-based industries (Sub-section 2.5.1). It then determines the key characteristics of an exploratory mode of technological learning based on the literature review (Sub-section 2.5.2). Lastly, the limited understanding of science-based catch-up and latecomers’ exploratory learning in the existing literature is summarised (Sub-section 2.5.3).

2.5.1 Challenges for science-based transition

Three unique features of knowledge in the pharmaceutical industry, combined with the general obstacles of transition, saddle latecomers with having to make radical changes in their pattern of technological learning.

First of all, the transition in the pharmaceutical industry requires a broader and deeper scientific knowledge base. Here, the point is the dual characteristics of science-based innovation, which is both fragmented and systemic. As highlighted above, when new-drug R&D is conducted, the relevant scientific knowledge is typically fragmented across various disciplines and innovation actors. At the same time, the fragmented knowledge must also be comprehensively understood in the context of a complex biological system like the human body. By contrast, in the imitation stage, which focuses on producing generic drugs, firms rarely engage in such highly explorative and integrative learning.

They generally acquire scientific knowledge that has already been ‘packaged’ in an engineering context. A full understanding of the scientific base of the products at this point is unnecessary in reversing the product life cycle, even in drug production. Thus,

55 In contrast, in modular products, the organisational boundaries of tasks set by each firm or team can be clearly demarcated due to the independent nature of the subsystems/components.

latecomers face significant barriers in dealing with the dual perspectives needed during the transitional phase.

Second, the integral architecture base of drugs creates a further knowledge gap between the imitation and innovation stages of development compared with what would be found in the modular products. The difficulty of physical decomposition and high interdependence between functions forces latecomers to master a complex knowledge base within a short period of time if they want to develop their own drugs.⁵⁶ In contrast, in the imitation stage, there is widely diffused information about off-patent original drugs.

Thus, firms can learn through reverse engineering of synthetic processes with less need for understanding the discovery and design process of the chemical composition.

However, the process-related capability will not enable latecomers to design and test novel integral products. That is, new-drug development requires a high level of exploratory learning, whereas the synthesis of off-patent drugs is based on exploitive learning.

Third, the emerging biotechnological paradigm also leads to complexity of learning in achieving science-based transition. Biotechnology can provide new opportunities for latecomer pharmaceutical firms’ catch-up, just as, for example, Korean TV manufacturers exploited the emerging technological paradigm of digital technologies (see Sub-section 2.3.2).

However, being able to take advantage of these new opportunities is difficult for two reasons. One is the fact that the speed of technological advance at the frontier influences the speed of catch-up in the new technological paradigm (Mytelka 2004). This is related to how quickly the forerunners move on to new technologies (ibid.). If the transitional period (of technology) becomes shorter, the latecomers with a limited knowledge base will have less of a possibility to catch up due to the intense science base of the emerging technological paradigm (ibid.).⁵⁷ The other is associated with latecomers’ direct ability to deal with institutional and organisational conditions involving new technologies (ibid.).

Surrounding institutions must determine how they can promote the exploratory learning

56 By contrast, modular products such as electronics and computers, have the relatively easy characteristics to realise the incremental change of the learning pattern. For example, the nature of physical decomposability underlies the successful stepwise catch-up often characterised by OEM and ODM. They initiated technological learning by supplying simple components to overseas manufacturers with limited engineering knowledge. They then incrementally expanded the supply scope of components and subsystems by improving their knowledge base. The design capability of the original product can be gradually acquired through the incremental expansion of exploration.

57 This is based on the illustration of the increasingly difficult environment surrounding taking the catching-up opportunities in new wave technologies such as biotechnology due to the extensive scientific knowledge base, the increasing need for collaborative and interactive learning by local innovation actors and the rapidly changing technologies (Mytelka 2004).

of new technologies. In addition, it is essential that latecomer firms expand their exploratory learning to take advantage of new opportunities

On the whole, to deal with complicated knowledge dynamics, there is a need for radical enhancement of the exploratory mode of technological learning.

Table 2.1: Key characteristics of exploration in science-based industries

Exploration Exploitation

 Distant search and learning (for future products/processes)

 Ill-defined problem

 High uncertainty - in cost and time

 Scientific research

 Proximate search and learning (around daily production activities)

 Immature and interconnected

 Limited science knowledge

 Often packaged and manualised

 Mature and engineered

Interaction

 Dense and tacit

 Simultaneous

 High openness and more horizontal

 Thin and codified

 Sequential

 Limited openness and often vertical

Competition

 Quality differentiation - novelty

 Often market creation or niche focus

 Patent protection base

 Active public research actors, Active science-intensive start-up

 Complex and heterogeneous institutional context

 Centralised and tight

 Dominated by industrial incumbents

 Streamlined institutional context

Source: Own elaboration based on Gilsing and Nooteboom (2006)

2.5.2 Key characteristics of exploratory learning

The initiation and establishment of an exploratory mode of learning is the main challenge in embarking on a science-based transition. In the latecomer context, it is assumed that the smooth expansion of exploratory learning ultimately influences the speed of the transition. This subsection determines the key characteristics of exploration in science-based industries with integral products compared with those of exploitation.

The review of organisational learning (Sub-section 2.2.3), first of all, identified some basic natures of exploratory learning, which is very different from exploitive learning

(Table 2.1). In general, exploitation involves the improvement of daily production activities through proximate search and learning with low uncertainty. It is often interpreted as incremental innovation with minor modifications. In contrast, exploration is performed for creating novel products and processes by distant search and learning with high uncertainty. In particular, exploratory learning in the pharmaceutical industry involves considerable scientific research, whereas exploitive learning is mainly related to engineering operationalisation.

As discussed in Section 2.4, sector specific knowledge dynamics also influence the different patterns of interactive learning, competition and selection criteria, as well as the governance of learning mechanisms of exploratory learning from exploitive learning (Table 2.1).

2.5.3 Limited understanding of science-based catch-up

The literature on catch-up has tended to focus on modular product-based industries that successfully followed the stepwise catch-up process with incremental expansion of exploratory learning. Interestingly, none of the four Asian NIEs have yet shown significant catch-up in the science-intensive and integral product-based pharmaceutical industry.

Relatedly, the process of enhancing exploratory learning in science-based industries with integral product architecture has tended to be overlooked.

The literature on science-based innovation continues to focus on the challenges of advanced countries, which have already accumulated a considerable science base and to a large extent already established the exploratory mode of technological learning.

Thus, R&D collaboration and balancing exploratory and exploitive learning have become the main interests of the literature (in innovative firms). In contrast, the challenges that latecomers face in initiating and enhancing exploratory learning have been overlooked in the literature.

All in all, the existing literature has limitations for understanding the changing dynamics of technological learning, as it shifts from exploitation to exploration during the process of science-based catch-up, particularly in industries such as the pharmaceutical industry, which are based on integral product architecture. This thesis focuses on the changing dynamics of technological learning in the science-based catch-up that seems to be increasingly important to sustain industrial upgrading in the latecomer context.

2.6 Summary

This chapter has reviewed the four bodies of literature that underpin this thesis’s main research problems, the formulation of research questions and the construction of its conceptual frameworks.

First, key theoretical concepts on the general innovation process in the latecomer context were reviewed. In the literature on micro-level technological capability, the transition of latecomers was discussed in terms of a qualitative reinforcement of the exploratory mode of technological learning to overcome the imitation stage. The macro-level institutional setting was then discussed by presenting a restructuring of two innovation systems (NIS and SIS) to promote innovation actors’ exploratory learning.

The review of the empirical literature first explored the common features of rapid catch-up, discussing the stepwise catch-up model of the Asian NIEs. This model is driven by enhancing absorptive capacity and acquiring export markets. It then showed that recent empirical studies of the transition clearly confirm the need for changes in organisational and institutional mechanisms from imitative learning to innovation generation. The transition of the KoPI can be interpreted within this frame.

Moreover, the review of the literature on science-based innovation showed that there is a bigger gap in technological learning between the imitation and innovation stages in the pharmaceutical industry, with its integral product architecture, than in the major catch-up industries that make modular products.

The review finally determined the key characteristics of exploratory and exploitive learning in the science-based pharmaceutical industry. It also pointed out that existing studies have only a limited understanding of the dynamics of science-based catch-up.

On this basis, the next chapter establishes the research problems, research questions and a framework.

Chapter 3: Research Questions, Frameworks and