Dynamics or Dilemma: Assessing the Innovation Systems of Three Satellite Platform Regions (Singapore, Dublin and Penang)

ABSTRACT

This study attempts to put forward a quantitative assessment via patent-based indexes to frame the innovation dynamics of three highly acknowledged Satellite Platform regions – Singapore, Dublin and Penang. A Satellite Platform is generally viewed as a comparatively less sticky region hosting the operations of many different uncooperative multinationals. They faced a common dilemma, namely non-committal of MNCs in defining a local structure to generate knowledge and innovation. Nonetheless, we observed diverse intervention from different local governments to pivot away from the dilemma and compensate for the lack of patient capital from multinational firms. Divergent paths in terms of inventiveness were observed. Singapore stands out as a region obtaining indigenous patenting capabilities – achieving higher localization, de-concentration, diversification and university-industry linkage indexes. On the other hand, Dublin emerged to derive an exploitative patenting route – witnessing higher science-based linkage indexes. Meanwhile, Penang – as a region that has been focusing on upskilling its blue-collar population – is relatively behind in performance for almost all patenting indexes compared to the other two. The framing and findings of this paper contribute to theorizing the divergence of interventions for knowledge-based economic development.

KEYWORDS:

• Regional innovation system
• patenting indexes
• Singapore
• Dublin
• Penang

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support by Laboratory Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of Republic of Korea and Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2018-LAB-1250001). The support from Ministry of Education of Taiwan for ”Business Transformation and Sustainability for Resilience” project (111J0013QD) is acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The activities can be relocated elsewhere should the firms encounter unfavorable conditions/changes in their local experience.

2. See Yeung (2021) for a critical review of studies that are oriented to assess regional indigenous capabilities and studies about strategic coupling.

3. Information available at https://www.edb.gov.sg/en/news-and-events/resources.html

4. The World Bank data (data.worldbank.org) indicates that Ireland had an admission rate of 78% for tertiary education in 2017, similar to that of Singapore (84%). The share is way above that of the UK (60%) and Malaysia (45%) for the same year.

5. Dublin Region denotes the capital city of Ireland (Dublin City) and three counties (Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin).

6. National level of innovation system analysis is not applied for the case of Singapore in this study as a city state differs from a national system in terms of area and population size.

7. Singapore was part of Malaysia between 1963–1965. It separated from Malaysia on 9 August 1965 to become an independent and sovereign state. For the case of Dublin, it usually denotes the capital city of Ireland and three nearby counties. There are times in some studies when Dublin is designated as Greater Dublin Area to highlight the industrial network between Dublin Region and nearby sub-urban areas. For the case of Penang, Penang Island was designated as “city” quite recently by the Malaysian government. It was never acknowledged with city status before 2010, even though its development status (in terms of infrastructure and income per capita) was way above many other industrialized states in Malaysia.

8. It is not uncommon to learn the importance of patenting as an indicator (for lack of a better alternative) for technological innovation (see Jaffe, Trajtenberg, and Henderson 1993; Schmoch and Thielmann 2012).

9. The share is derived (using authors’ own data) from searching patent related software that is based on the US class codes 700–720, 725 and 726.

10. A database that enables us to sort our extracted data.

11. The observation was made when we were compiling data for Appendix 4.

12. We chose Intel instead of PixArt as the core firm for Penang, as Intel accumulated a much higher number of patents than other firms in Penang.

13. This is in contrast to hub-and-spoke regions (like Suwon). The core firm has tremendous impact on regional technological activities (see Wong and Lee 2021).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Laboratory Program for Korean Studies [AKS-2018-LAB-1250001].