Category: Meso organisational development

Meso Institutions as enablers of Self-Discovery, Increasing Learning and resilience

Updated on 18 April 2020, originally published 15 October 2019

In every economy there are organisations that emerge to address all kinds of market, structural and organisational failures. We call these organisations meso organisations – they perform meso functions aimed at improving the economic performance and prosperity of the micro-level. While some meso functions may be more concerned with creating a regulatory framework and others with education or technological services, in essence all meso functions are about disseminating knowledge between economic actors.

Diversity (or variety) of options is a prerequisite for evolution to work. In natural evolution, variety is created by random mutations in DNA, while variations in the economy are created through an ongoing process of self-discovery at different levels, involving different segments of society (Hausmann and Rodrik, 2003). Rodrik (2000) states that this process can be called a meta-institution. He argues that if it is democratic and participatory, this kind of arrangement typically results in higher-quality growth. This discovery process draws heavily on the ability of groups of organised people in business, government and civil society to conduct a process of combining existing ideas with new ideas in novel designs. It involves both reflecting on the status quo and imagining alternative arrangements.

Nelson (2003:20) stresses that “some of our most difficult problems involve discovering, inventing and developing the social technologies needed to make new physical technologies effective”. The more distributed this kind of search is, the better the variety created and the stronger the resilience of the system becomes.

Businesses that are able to generate or recognise modules that work better and that can be repeated elsewhere by drawing on their past experiences have a huge advantage over businesses that are not able to do so (Dosi and Nelson, 2010; Beinhocker, 2006; Nelson and Winter, 1982). Schumpeter already argued some time ago that innovation consists of “the carrying out of new combinations”, with many of these combinations depending on past knowledge or understanding of physical, social or economic properties (Schumpeter, 1934:65-66). Dosi and Nelson (2010:103) argue that the ability of firms to learn, adapt and innovate is generally highly heterogeneous, idiosyncratic and unevenly spread.

Not all the knowledge needed to conduct ongoing discovery processes is available within a single individual or organisation. Hence social infrastructure, technology, education and business networks are essential in connecting organisations into broader networks of knowledge (Hidalgo, 2015). This is where the diversity, adaptability and resilience of the network of meso organisations and their functions play a critical role.

The factors within firms and beyond firms, including the landscape of meso organisations collectively describe the technological capability of an industry, a country or a sub-national region. The dynamic of how these factors influence each other is the essence of the innovation system of a country, an industry (sector) or a location. The innovation system is not so much concerned with the presence of any given organisations as it is with their ability to network and cooperate in disseminating and adapting knowledge.

Now, to connect this concept of technological capability, it’s back to the meso organisations. Meso organisations and their functions are critical in disseminating technological knowledge in a society, an industry or a region. The process by which these organisations emerge and adjust is unique and depends on the context. I am genuinely intrigued by how these institutions emerge, adapt and change over time to form modern organisations that can respond to, anticipate and adjust to structural change and patterns of economic underperformance in the economy.

Sources

BEINHOCKER, E.D. 2006. The origin of wealth: evolution, complexity, and the radical remaking of economics. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

DOSI, G. and NELSON, R.R. 2010. Technical change and industrial dynamics as evolutionary processes. In Handbook of the Economics of Innovation. Bronwyn, H.H. and Nathan, R. (Eds.), Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 51-127.

HAUSMANN, R. and RODRIK, D. 2003. Economic development as self-discovery. Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 72(2) pp. 603-633.

HIDALGO, C.S.A. 2015. Why information grows: the evolution of order, from atoms to economies. New York: Basic Books.

NELSON, R.R. 2003. Physical and social technologies and their evolution. Piza, Italy: Laboratory of Economics and Management, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies.

NELSON, R.R. and WINTER, S.G. 1982. An evolutionary theory of economic change. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

RODRIK, D. 2000. Institutions for high-quality growth: What they are and how to acquire them. Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 35(3) pp. 3-31.

SCHUMPETER, J. 1934. The theory of economic development. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press.

The evolution of technologies, industries and regions

In the earlier research on technological evolution in the 1970-1995 period, attention was mainly paid to either a whole economy or a single sector or technological paradigm. It is broadly understood from this research that different industries and technologies evolve at different rates. This means that over time, some industries may be more important than others, or at least, some may be accelerating while others may be stagnant or declining. In recent research by Saviotti and Pyka (2013), the emergence of new technologies and industries (and the goods and services that they provide) is seen as offsetting the diminishing returns that are innate in the development of existing technologies. Nelson (2015) argues that this is a reason why absorption and further development of these technologies are necessary to maintain economic development.

In enabling technological evolution in countries, a whole range of actors play a part. Individuals and informal networks, to large and small firms all play a role. However, for the last century, most technological advancements have been supported by scientists, the academia and professional societies and a range of supporting meso organisations. In Europe, professional associations often play an important role in the deepening and dissemination of technological knowledge.

I want to come back to the meso organisations mentioned in the earlier paragraph. Meso organisations or functions are created in response to structural issues like market failures, sometimes government failures or persistent patterns of underperformance in the economy. These meso functions are critical in supporting economic actors to discover what is possible in a given economic context, to assist stakeholders to overcome coordination failures, and to provide critical public goods (such as scarce or expensive technological infrastructure, demonstration facilities, testing facilities, public research, and so on).

The meso functions enable a society, industry or even the public sector to discover and absorb new ideas, they enable learning by doing, they encourage the adaptation and dissemination of new knowledge or technologies, and they connect different stakeholders to overcome coordination and search failures. These meso functions are a critical ingredient in the local innovation system as they extend the technological capability of a given sector, industry, market or region in a country.

You would have noticed that I have not yet mentioned universities and public research efforts. This is simply because I have written about them so often as they form a critical part of the local innovation system. I sometimes even think that the higher education sector receives too much attention. Yet, education from basic schooling to higher education plays a critical role. For me, a university is an important meso organisation, and research centres, technology extension centres and laboratories that provides testing facilities are all important meso functions or maybe even meso organisations hosted by a larger organisation.

The importance of the higher education sector in the technological infrastructure varies for different parts of the economy. Nelson contends that scientific and technological research and teaching, especially the more applied fields, provide a base of knowledge that is accessible to all technically sophisticated individuals and firms working to advance technology in a field (Nelson, 2015). However, different fields also depend, to different extents, on scientific and formal research and technology support. Therefore, measuring journal articles and research outputs as a contribution to the national innovation system or as a proxy for technological capability will always paint only a partial picture. It really also depends on the pace of change and scientific advancement that is taking place in a region, a technological domain or an industry.

Furthermore, different industries depend, to different extents, on government support and incentives. In some fields public support is crucial, and in other cases, provides little incentive or value. In many cases innovations preceded science, and continued development is only possible due to the iteration between researchers and enterprises. Nelson continues that the kinds of firms that do most of the innovating differ – in some fields this tends to be large, established firms while in others it is smaller firms or new start-ups (Nelson, 2015).

Nelson draws an important conclusion that has really shaped my own thinking. Nelson states that there is no single set of policies that are applicable to all technologies and industries. What will be effective in some fields will not be in others. For instance, small business promotion in some sectors in one country could work, but it could be ineffective in another country.

In South Africa, with its very high coordination costs and high compliance costs, smaller enterprises in the manufacturing sector are at a huge disadvantage. The distance to sophisticated buyers and the challenges with exports compounds the difficulty for smaller enterprises to compete globally from the local base.

Nelson is also known for his writing on the importance of a wide range of social institutions, both formal (for example a cluster development organisation) and informal (the trust networks between members of the clusters). He refers to these social institutions as social technologies, and he argues that they co-evolve with physical technologies to enable economic development. These social institutions range from central banks to a diverse range of firms, but importantly include other forms of organisations such as scientific and technological societies, universities, government agencies and even capital markets. These institutions are the focus of the discipline of innovation systems.

Nelson emphasises that “that when a potentially new technology emerges, new institutions often are needed to develop it, and invest in and operate effectively the economic practices based on it”.

Nelson acknowledges it is not an easy task, as it is hard to predict which emerging fields of promising new technologies are going to be important in driving economic progress in the future, and which will have a modest impact. The policies to create or reform institutions need to be adaptive and flexible. Arthur (2009:186) confirms the view of Nelson and argues that “We cannot tell in advance which phenomena will be discovered and converted into the basis of new technologies. Nor can we predict which combinations will be created.”

That brings me back to my intent with this post. When we look at technological disruption and change, it is very easy to get caught up in the potential or risks of any given technology. But we must not take our eye of the informal and formal institutions, market systems, regulations and technological domain specific organisations that are needed to make a new technology viable. At the same time, we also have to figure out how to gracefully exit older technologies and how to either shut down or transform public organisations that once had a critical role in supporting those industries and technologies.

Again, I repeat, the so-called fourth industrial revolution is going to be more disruptive at the level of institutions and social arrangements than it will be disruptive for the enterprises that are competing at the technological frontier.

In South Africa, we have a triple-challenge.

1 – Our institutions change very slowly, and we have huge social tensions about how to allocate resources and wealth in the economy. Our local municipalities and local economic development activities are ineffective (with some exceptions in some of the larger metros). Yet, local authorities have hardly any influence over the quality and effectiveness of national meso programmes that are supposed to enable economic change.

2 – This is compounded by a largely uncompetitive economy with lots of market concentration.  The regulatory burden in the economy keeps a lot of potential entrepreneurs employed in the corporate and the public sectors.

3 – Our discussions in South Africa about technological change, technological capability and the promotion of the innovation system is dominated by a linear logic of science leading to technology leading to innovation (the so-called STI approach). There is not enough attention being paid to the eco-system of organisations, technology extension agencies that can help enterprises master new technological domains, reduce coordination costs, the so-called Do, Use, Integrate (DUI) kind of innovation. On that point, we also have very few (if any) technological organisations tasked with transforming or upgrading whole sectors or regions in the country from a technological perspective. Everything is aimed at one enterprise at a time.

My research agenda:

This is what my research is about at the moment. I am working with a team from TIPS and the dti (South African Department of Trade and Industry) to strengthen the visibility of this technological meso network, while also strengthening the public sectors ability to spot technological disruptions and to be more pro-active.

Please sign up below if you want to stay informed of our progress as I will not be able to share all of our learning in the public space all the time.



Sources:

Arthur, W.B. 2009.  The nature of technology : what it is and how it evolves. New York: Free Press.

Nelson, R.R. 2015.  Understanding long-run economic development as an evolutionary process. Economia Politica,Vol. 32(1) pp. 11-29.

Saviotti, P.P. and Pyka, A. 2013.  The co-evolution of innovation, demand and growth. Economics of Innovation & New Technology, Vol. 225 pp. 461-482.

Becoming better at tracking how technologies change over time

The subject of how technologies evolve over time have been receiving a lot of attention over the last 40 years. Actually, much of the research work done in the late 80s and 90s are still relevant today. With all the talk of the fourth industrial revolution, the attention has shifted towards innovations coming from elsewhere away from what do we have to do in our own organisation to improve our performance, offer our clients amazing value, and to create the future we want to be part of.

I am working with several think tanks, research organisations and policy advisors to help governments and key meso-organisations to become better at tracking technological change and potential disruptions. This work draws on my experience of supporting industry and innovation systems diagnostic processes as well as my experience in supporting organisation development and change.

To be better able to predict technological disruptions meso organisations and policymakers must become much better at anticipating future demands. That means they have to shift from being demand responsive (in other words waiting for the private sector to clearly articulate what they need) to anticipating what is needed. This requires a deep understanding of how user needs are changing (market knowledge), but also of how key technological capabilities in the industries they serve are changing (technological knowledge).

The challenge here in South Africa is that most of the organisations that are supporting innovation and technological change are focused on fixing the past. Due to our countries past, they are trying to get marginalised people (women, the youth, black entrepreneurs) into the mainstream economy. These disadvantaged groups need a lot of support because they are expected to compete against incumbents who have access to capital, suppliers and markets.

This research agenda has three pillars:

  1. Figure out how well South Africa is doing in terms of technological change. Which sectors are changing faster, where is productivity and manufacturing value add improving, and where are we falling behind? This area of research is also about mobilising sector organisations, like industry associations or a whole range of meso organisations supporting the private sector to become better at tracking technological change.
  2. Make the landscape of technological support organisations more visible. These organisations can assist both the private and the public sector to embrace, experiment with or adapt to technological change. A next step would be to make sure that these organisations are incentivised to disseminate technological knowledge and that they are not only measured on how they assist individual enterprises or technology transfer projects.
  3. The third pillar is to improve the dynamism in how public sector organisations work together and collaborate with the private sector to promote industrialisation, upgrading and innovation. This is an essential ingredient to strengthen the countries technological capability, to reduce coordination costs and to foster healthy and pro-active public goods that encourage entrepreneurs to search and discover new economic opportunities.

The current research agenda is not yet comprehensive but for me the synergies between these three pillars are great. It is about technological change, about making sense, about promoting innovation within and between organisations and also about strengthening meso organisations.