Enhancing Productivity through Innovation: Korea's Response to Competitiveness Challenges

Abstract

Korea is far behind other OECD countries in economy-wise productivity: Korea's labor productivity in terms of GDP per hour worked is the lowest among OECD countries. Against the existing productivity gap, there is a worrying sign in Korea's investment trend － rapid fall in machinery and equipment investment with slow increase in R&D investment. The challenge facing Korea is how to transform her economy from catching-up model to a knowledge-based one. The paper shows that, in tandem with the structural changes that today's Korean industries are experiencing, industry's innovation system is also changing. Innovation networks are emerging as the result of economy-wise restructuring since the financial crisis of 1997 and, though still not a dominant force, the newly emerging innovation networks will be the main threads of industry's innovation activities in the future. The changes in industrial innovation system would positively contribute in raising the productivity of the Korean economy. The paper contains a case study on Korea's automobile industry in order to highlight some of main characteristics of the structural changes, in addition to a chapter that gives an overview of the evolutionary paths of the Korea's industrial innovation. The paper assesses that changes can be considered as a positive sign of future growth perspective; but there are further challenges to make the Korea's industrial innovation system effective. The list of such challenges includes strengthening upstream sectors of currently leading industries, expanding the innovation base to SME and promoting technological co-operation between domestic firms and foreign firms.