Sectoral Systems of Innovation in Asia: The Case of Software Research Activities

The article compares sectoral systems of innovation (SSI) related to software in the selected Asian countries: China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, focusing on industry-academia relations. It attempts to answer a question about the relevance of scientific research in each of the countries for local software companies, using tech mining research method. The analysis focuses on relevant scientific output of individual countries: publications from Compendex database in a 5-years time frame (2000-2004). The paper characterizes the involvement of private sector in scientific research, identifying the leading regional science-based software firms as well as key foreign vendors, conducting software research in Asia. It subsequently analyzes the balance between basic and applied research by clustering applied research topics and verifying contributions to dominant software domains. Finally, it measures the responsiveness of researchers to emerging technologies. The analysis helps identify potential inefficiencies and strategic threats in the software sectors of the concerned countries.