National Learning Systems: A new approach on technological change in late industrializing economies and evidences from the cases of Brazil and South Korea

Abstract The paper has two intertwined parts. The first one is a proposal for a conceptual and theoretical framework to understand technical change in late industrializing economies. The second part develops a kind of empirical test of the usefulness of that new framework by means of a comparative study of the Brazilian and South Korean cases. In the first part, it is claimed that the unwarranted use of the National Innovation System's (NIS's) approach to late industrializing economies could incur in serious shortcomings. The reason for this resides in the great differences that occur between the processes of technical change in these economies and those of industrialized countries. The central problem is the fact that NIS's studies are largely focused on innovation, and this is, in general, a phenomenon alien to late industrializing economies. The process of technical change typical of these economies is essentially a process of learning, rather than of innovation. The paper, in opposition to the current lax use of the concept, adopts a precise definition of learning. Learning is defined as the process of technical change achieved by the absorption of already existing techniques, i.e., of innovations engendered elsewhere, and the generation of improvements in the vicinity of the acquired innovations. In other words, learning is the process of technical change achieved by diffusion (in the perspective of technology absorption) and incremental innovation. Late industrializing economies should, therefore, be analyzed as National Learning Systems (NLSs). It is indicated, moreover, that NLSs are prone to follow a technological strategy directed essentially towards the absorption of only technological capabilities of production. That type of technological behavior is characterized as a passive learning strategy, and the economies in which it prevails are characterized as Passive NLSs. A few late industrializing countries, however, have managed to develop (through a deliberate and consistent technological effort) a strategy of learning that also focuses on the mastering and improving of the absorbed technologies of production. That type of technological behavior is characterized as active learning strategy, and the economies in which it prevails, as Active NLSs. The comparative analysis of Brazil and South Korea, developed in the second part of the paper, demonstrates that the system of technical change of each country can be characterized as cases of Passive and Active NLSs, respectively.