International Competition in Advanced Technology Decisions for America (1983) / Chapter Skim
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3. Policies and Practices Affecting U.S. Competitiveness in Advanced Technology
3. Policies and Practices Affecting U.S. Competitiveness in Advanced Technology
Pages 39-51
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From page 39... ...
the United States has available to it tools for addressing the needs of its advanced technology enterprise, to strengthen both its capacity for technological innovation and its international trade competitiveness. Such tools include federal programs for support of research and education; governmental policies and practices with regard to taxes, antitrust, patents, regulation, and technology exports; and broad national economic policies.
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From page 40... ...
A further problem is that policymakers are rarely people experienced in the industrial innovation process-those who through active experience know the difficulties of creating, producing, and marketing new products and processes embodying advanced technologies. Maintaining a continuing expertise, through a highly qualified and stable governmental career staff, is a corollary difficulty.
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From page 41... ...
For example, firms have difficulty retaining the benefits of research that are the product of multifirm collaboration; prospective "safe-harbor" rulings are not readily available; and there is a general uncertainty regarding what corporate actions may elicit legal actions on the basis of antitrust legislation. Because of this uncertainty, management cites antitrust policy as creating excessive risk for a range of activities that may benefit innovation and trade, such as pooling research efforts, pooling information on the work of international competitors, or pooling development
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From page 42... ...
Technological innovation by large established firms requires both the capital and the incentive to make largescale investments. Japan appears to have an advantage over the United States in this area because the cost of capital in Japan (in real terms)
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From page 43... ...
Until we can achieve agreement to minimize government sponsorship of export credits, we should be prepared to provide similar support for our own industries as we have done in the past through the Export-Import Bank. Similarly, the United States imposes on exports to currently out-of-favor nations controls for both foreign policy and national security reasons.
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From page 44... ...
Management American industrial management, long regarded as the standard for excellence, has recently come under criticism. Failure to maintain product quality, searches for short-term market payoffs, and failure to invest in long-term technological innovations are some of the alleged faults.
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From page 45... ...
Effective application of American styles of management coupled to a deeper understanding of the critical role of technological innovation in future economic growth may be more appropriate than studying Japanese or other management models. The rapid evolution of advanced technologies offers remarkable opportunities for corporate exploitation and growth.
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From page 46... ...
A diverse set of human skills is essential to national technological innovative capacity: a technically come petent labor force, a first-rate and constantly freshened basic research force, and well-trained baccalaureate and graduate engineers, scientists, and technologically sophisticated managers. Advanced technologies are powerful tools, but their power is realized only through individual imagination applying them in novel ways.
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From page 47... ...
The system is now suffering not only a virtual stasis in research funding, but also squeezes on endowments of private universities and diminished governmental support for state universities. Total national basic research spending averaged 4.4 percent annual growth from 1975 to 1980, with the federal government accounting for 70 percent of that increase.~° Growth has tapered off since then and would be negative but for increased research spending in defense and space.
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From page 48... ...
Industry attracts bachelor-degree engineers in ever greater numbers -- a process that has been aptly termed seating our seed corn." And, as with the sciences, university engineering education is beset by deteriorating and obsolescent instrumentation. Monitoring International Technology Many nations have developed mechanisms for monitoring foreign technological developments and reporting them back to their domestic industries.
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From page 49... ...
instruments used to foster technological industrial performance still may be adequate in the face of the more intrusive policies of other countries; but they can only be truly effective with a coordinated and national focus on strengthening the nation's trade competitiveness and advanced technology capacity. Certainly, any change i in the use of existing instruments, or the addition of others, means a major departure in governmental policies toward the industrial economy.
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From page 50... ...
See M Therese Flaherty, Determinants of Market Share in International Semiconductor Markets, n a Dresentation to the Panel on Advanced Technology Competition and the Industrialized Allies, Washington, D.C., February 9, 1982, pp.
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From page 51... ...
7. t5For a discussion of some of the mechanisms used by Japan and Western Europe in the field of computer science, see National Research Council, International Developments in Computer Science (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1982)
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