Towards Regionally Embedded Innovation Support Systems in South Korea? Case Studies from Kyongbuk-Taegu and Kyonggi

Since the beginning of the 1990s, systems of innovation have been used as a framework to explain differences in innovativeness between firms, industries and economies at local, regional, national and supranational levels. The main argument behind the discussions around systems of innovation is that firms are increasingly dependent on institutions in their direct environment for their innovativeness and thus competitiveness. In regional innovation systems, firms and other organisations are systematically engaged in interactive learning through an institutional milieu characterised by embeddedness. On the basis of these systems' governance infrastructure, a typology can be developed consisting of grassroots systems (with the highest level of regional embeddedness), integrated systems and dirigiste systems (with the lowest level of regional embeddedness). Based on empirical research on innovation support agencies in Kyongbuk-Taegu and Kyonggi, this paper shows that South Korea is characterised by dirigiste regional innovation support systems with a relatively low level of regional embeddedness. This dirigiste kind of system generates both excessively homogeneous innovation support agencies, which are not sufficiently focused on specific regional economic demand, and horizontal policy coordination problems due to the strong vertical dependencies of agencies in the regions to their sponsors in the central government.