Building STP’s Ecosystem: Kitakyushu Approach - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 395

systemic aspects of innovation were increasingly influential in determining both
the rate of diffusion and the productivity gains associated with any particular
diffusion process in a national economy. To argue it, they used a term which has
become known in some literatures as 'national system of innovation' which is a
kind of reinterpretation of 'national system of political economy' called by List
( 1841 ).
Like List had paid attention to a broad range of national characteristics con-
cerned with leaning about new technology and applying it for accelerating or
making possible industrialization and economic growth, Freeman and Soete also
gave attention to some national systemic factors related with science, technology,
and skills in the growth of nations such as UK, US, and Japan. Particularly, they
took note of the systemic interactions and its structures as characteristics of
national system of innovation (Tables 1 , 2 , 3 ).
In Table 3 , we may notice that Freeman and Soete emphasized 'integration' and
'network linkages' using the word 'strong' in the characteristics of the Japanese
national system of innovation in the 1970s. They laid stress on the importance of
the integration of R&D, production, and technology imports at firm level, and the
user-producer and subcontractor network linkages as the strongest features of the
Japanese system (Ibid., p. 304). In the Japanese case, moreover, the long-term
'visions' generated by an interactive process involving not only MITI 1 and other
government organizations but also industries and universities made the integration
and the network linkages more effective for industrial development and economic
growth. The Japanese competitive success in the 1970's international economy
based on industries as diverse as shipbuilding, automobiles, and color television is
eloquent evidence of it. And then, Japanese managers, engineers, and workers
grew accustomed to considering the entire production process as a system and to
thinking in an integrated way about product design and process design (Ibid.,
p. 148).
2.2 For Changeover: Science City in Center Area
and Technopolis in Periphery
It can be said that the Japanese national system of innovation above-mentioned
was for the widespread and effective agile use of 'reverse engineering' at firm
level. In fact, in the 1950s the first Japanese production models, whether in
automobiles, TV sets, or machine tools, were often of relatively poor quality (Baba
1985 ). A determined effort to overcome these defects included a systematic review
of all the possible sources of such social innovations as 'quality circles' and to the
development of greatly improved techniques of quality control, not simply at the
1 Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
(METI) at present).