DR SIBUSISO T MANZINI CREATING AND SUSTAINING AN INNOVATION CULTURE IN SOUTH AFRICA: A SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE
S
outh Africa’s capacity to innovate cannot be doubted. The country boasts some of the most spectacular achievements in technological innovation in the world. Sasol is one of many examples of what the country can achieve by converting ideas into products and services of immense economic value. However, a closer inspection of the country’s record in innovation reveals chronic weaknesses: innovation efforts in South Africa are inconsistent, largely accidental, weakly supported, poorly leveraged and disjointed. This has to change if the goal of growing the economy in order to alleviate poverty is to be realised. The purpose of this paper is to propose broad approaches that could be implemented in order to address the structural and operational weaknesses at various levels of the country’s national innovation system.
1. Analytical Approach This paper proposes systems thinking as a useful philosophical point of departure in finding solutions to the weaknesses that are identified above. The key elements of systems thinking that are applied here are described by Senge (1990). The rest of the theoretical basis of systems thinking is derived from the work of Ackoff (1971). The National System of Innovation (NSI) is a collective term that demarcates the institutions, organisations, policies and programmes that cooperate to promote the conversion of ideas into economically valuable products and services. The NSI brings together the efforts of private and public sector enterprise – big and small – to bring about shared benefits for all. From a systems perspective, the contribution of an individual entrepreneur can be as important as that of a multinational industrial behemoth in
76 Management Today | September 2012
making the NSI work. Even though there is not always a central coordination point for all the activities involved, South Africa’s NSI exhibits all the key indicators of system behaviour. An analysis of the policy documents, structural arrangements and reports on the performance of the innovation system bear testimony to its system behaviour. A mapping of the NSI reveals that the system consists of separate institutions and organisations that play different but complementary roles. These include policies and legislation; advisory bodies; funding agencies; education institutions; research
and development
institutions; technology transfer organisations; government, industry,
the private sector
and society. An assessment of this collage of institutions and organisations, against the background of systems thinking, bring to light a number of features. These are:
• Interacting elements – the NSI consists of institutions and organisations that play a variety of roles in promoting innovation • Contribution to the whole – all the elements contribute some way to the total functioning of the system • Open system – the NSI is embedded in a milieu of contextual factors that impinge on and impact it in various ways • System environment – the NSI, as an open system, interacts with its environment and thus responds to the national and international factors • System boundary – although imaginary and difficult to accurately define, the NSI interacts with its environment through a semi- permeable boundary • Indivisibility – aspects of the NSI indicate a high degree of holistic and complementary
The Innovation Journal
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