When the Impossible becomes viable: Producing & Exporting Knowledge-Intensive Goods in Underdeveloped Countries. The Organizational Dimension in a Socio-technical Analysis of an Argentinean Nuclear and Space company (1971-2004)

VERSINO, MARIANA; THOMAS, HERNÁN; LALOUF, ALBERTO

Turín

Conferencia; 5th Triple Helix Conference "The Capitalization of Knowledge: cognitive, economic, social &cultural aspects"; 2005

Fondazione Rosselli

5th Triple Helix Conference "The Capitalization of Knowledge: cognitive, economic, social &cultural aspects" Turin-Milan, 18 -21 May 2005   Empirical papers Suggested Tracks Track 7: Knowledge for Innovation Track 10: Management and Innovation   When the Impossible becomes Viable: Producing & Exporting Knowledge-Intensive Goods in Underdeveloped Countries. The organizational dimension in a socio-technical analysis of an Argentinean nuclear and space company (1971-2004).   Mariana S. Versino UNICAMP / CONICET/ UNLP (Argentina)   Hernán E. Thomas CONICET/University of Quilmes (Argentina). Alberto Lalouf Ph.D. Program FLACSO/ University of Quilmes (Argentina) Extended abstract The more spread image about technological activity in peripheral countries is that knowledge-intensive productions are relatively uncommon, and low on innovation: the technology socially in use comes from abroad, while the technological intervention is confined to making adaptations to local conditions of production and consumption. However, it is possible to gather empirical information on the creativeness of local technology, in which the degree of innovation precludes these operations from being referred to as mere phenomena of ‘adaptation’, ‘redesign’, ‘diffusion’ or ‘mechanical transference’. In order to analyze this innovative dynamic, the paper focuses in the production and use of technological knowledge in an Argentinean company that has been able to generate capacities in various knowledge-intensive techno-productive targets. The firm has developed competences in the areas of design, development and construction of nuclear reactors for scientific research and radioisotope production, the production of space technology (satellites and observation systems), and industrial equipment and automation (chemical plants, the treatment of hazardous industrial waste). Based on a socio-technical approach, the paper considers the evolution of the formal and informal organizational structure of the firm and the co-evolution with its socio-technical trajectory.  The analyzed firm receives no state financing, and depends exclusively on the sale of services and equipment, and on construction contracts in Argentina and abroad. Company practice is, in this sense, equivalent to that of a for profit enterprise. The company is a relevant case in Latin America: §         it produces scientific and technological knowledge-intensive products; §         it is a viable company which has existed for three decades; §         it exports embodied and disembodied technology to both underdeveloped and developed countries; §         it has won international tenders in competitions with leading companies in their respective sectors from the United States, Germany, France, Japan and Canada.Objectives The paper aims to answer how knowledge-intensive technology was carried out in an underdeveloped country in conditions normally considered inappropriate for that type of productions to be viable. The analysis of the case allows the construction of stylized facts oriented to the replication of the main characteristics that made possible the existence of this experience. The final objective looks forward creating new strategies to improve socio-technically adequate public policies of science and technology.Methodology and theoretical approach The role that organizational aspects play in production and technological change processes has been ignored in the traditional view of neoclassical economy. This approach considers the actions of economical agents based in rational choice models. Institutionalism and evolutionary economics take into account the institutions and organizations in their analytical proposal as independent variables that affect the behavior of economic agents, limiting their possibilities of choice. Although in this cases is recognized the importance of the organizational dimension in technology production processes (cumulative learning, path dependency, etc.), the a priori determinism beneath these theories does not allow evaluating the space that this dimension has in the analyzed processes. Differently from the mainstream in the organizational and economic theory, the firm is not considered a priori as an analytical unit highly stable, hierarchically integrated and transparently differentiated in the context that operates. Otherwise, the analytical approach allows defining in each case which actors (individual or institutional) are relevant for each product or knowledge developed. In order to overcome these limitations the analytical framework used in this paper integrates concepts from the sociology of technology and science and economy of technological change. In particular the concepts of ‘technological frames’, ‘technological style’, ‘generic instruments’ (sociology of technology and science) and the different notions of ‘learning’ - by doing, by using, by interacting etc. -, ‘technological trajectories’ and ‘institutional and technological co-evolution’ (economy of technological change). The available conceptualizations geared towards the analysis of the production of artifacts and technological knowledge (generated in the disciplinary matrices of the innovation economy and the constructivist sociology of technology) pose diverse theoretical-methodological problems: an a priori deterministic limitation, difficulties in analyzing diachronic processes, unsuitability for peripheral contexts. In this framework, the notions of ‘socio-technical dynamics’, ‘socio-technical trajectory’, ‘socio-technical style’ and ‘resignification of technologies’ are applied as analytical tools in an attempt to overcome these problems. The work is supported in empirical data obtained from the analysis of documents (primary and secondary fonts) and extended series of qualitative interviews to the professionals of the firm. Concluding remarks An analysis of the socio-technical dynamics of the company helps relate micro-phenomena (products and processes, practices, strategies, styles, organizational structures) and macro-phenomena (public policies, socio-institutional dynamics, state structures, markets). The acquired capabilities (re-signification of technologies, reutilization of skills, learning by learning), the flexibility of generic knowledge and the mono-product scale were functional not only to adequate problem solver practices within different projects, but also to the adaptation to successive crisis situations and the radical reorientations typical of an unstable local economic policy. The socio-technical dynamics of the analyzed company synergically combines the resignification of technologies and the transversal regime of knowledge production. The technoproductive strategy is based on the reutilization of knowledge, equipment and skills. The behavior of the firm is both far from the accumulation of a stock of knowledge generated by a science push lineal logic of supply– in the style of the main public R&D institutions in the region-, and far from a simple demand pull operation. An analysis of the company’s trajectory shows a complex socio-technical dynamic, in which capacities for inter- and intra-institutional interaction and of integration of knowledge makes viable the competitive participation of a medium-sized company from an underdeveloped country in international markets of knowledge-intensive goods. It is important to note that this case study does not simply reveal a virtuous accumulation of intra-company knowledge, but, fundamentally, a flexible form of organization and circulation of know-how, adaptable to the different situations the company has experienced in its history. Significantly, the existence of factors normally considered unfavorable for the development of competitive knowledge-intensive companies (macroeconomic instability, political-institutional discontinuity, shortage of credit, reduced scale of production, inexistence of local techno-productive networks, peripheral condition of the host country of location) had, on different opportunities, a positive incidence in the socio-technical trajectory of the company. In a non-lineal process, the sequence accumulation of capabilities/structural crisis generated a trajectory of socio-technical adequacy. Conceptual and policy-making contributions An analysis of the company’s socio-technical trajectory provides a clear insight into the rhythm, consistency, limitations and possibilities of the direction of Latin American innovation. Also reveals the scope of its technological practices, making possible for a medium-sized company from an underdeveloped country to compete in international markets of knowledge-intensive goods. Producing and exporting knowledge-intensive goods in underdeveloped countries is viable, but not in the lineal (science push or demand pull) form in which policies on science and technology in peripheral countries are normally conceived. The case provides elements of analysis useful for the criticism of current public R&D policies and the -socio-technically adequate- design of new Science, Technology and Innovation policies.