THE IMPACT OF POLICY ON TECHNOLOGY

Date
2011-05-16
Authors
Maredi, Sekgaola (Alfred)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
When South Africa was welcomed back into the community of nations, one of its biggest challenges was to compete economically, and this required the development of its technology capability. As part of the new policy direction, the development of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the role to be played by them were promoted. To this end, government-sponsored science parks or technology incubators, such as The Innovation Hub, were established to facilitate and stimulate technology innovation and commercialisation. This research study attempts to illuminate the extent to which policy created a conducive environment for technology innovation, diffusion and capability. It also examines the factors purported to drive technology capability in order to depict their role, both individually and collectively, in stimulating technology capability. It assesses the “impact” made by The Innovation Hub through the Maxum Incubator on technology capability of the start-up enterprises. The international experience in this regard proves that there is in fact no universally applicable strategy to attain technology capability, and that the applicability and success of the strategies depends to a large extent on the peculiarities of the countries and the management thereof. This is supported by the diversity of theoretical and empirical models of generating the necessary S & T knowledge. The data, findings, analytical interpretation of these, and the conclusions, all demonstrate that the technology capability factors have played a symbiotic role in the attainment of the enterprises’ technology capability. In view of the relative “impact” made by The Innovation Hub in this respect, the final recommendations (such as comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation systems) are aimed at maximizing the “impact” that The Innovation Hub or similar incubators is able to make
Description
MM - P&DM
Keywords
Technology innovation, Innovation hubs, Small businesses, Technology incubators
Citation
Collections