Technology policy between 'diversity' and 'one best practice' - A comparison of Korean and German promotion schemes for new production technologies

Policy makers in all industrialized countries are increasingly orienting their science and technology policy towards foreign patterns. There seems to be 'one best practice' which is used by all nations to make their economies fit for global competition. This paper doubts this paradigm. By comparing the South Korean and German promotion schemes for new production technologies, it is shown that an appropriate technology policy has to take the individual national system of innovation into consideration. Merely imitating the examples of countries with different frame conditions is inappropriate. Diversity in science and technology policy has been the precondition for the success of contributions of these policies to economic and technological development in both South Korea and Germany. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.