Is China really the new emerging Asian innovation leader? No, not yet! For one simple reason: Japan – the former, and still reigning, Asian innovative champion!
In the midst of a veritable media blizzard regarding China’s newly-found innovative prowess (especially with respect to green technologies), and Japan’s -- Toyota’s -- recent embarrassing technical gaffes, it is important not to lose one’s perspective about what innovation really is, and why Japan, despite it’s stalled economy, is still the innovative powerhouse of Asia.
Thomas Friedman has made it fashionable to speak about the world becoming “flat”, and this might actually be happening – to some small extent – when we speak about invention; in other words a lot of people doing research. But, innovation is the ability to produce, apply and distribute these inventions. It is the ability to create positive change by turning new ideas into application. Richard Florida pointed out that “The world is spikey”; and the spikes are centered on the location of powerful multinational corporations with global reach and global brands. These MNCs can take products, processes or business model improvements and turn them into new practices that change the way an entire industry works, on a global scale. New ideas (a commitment to research) are simply not enough. Innovation requires this, for sure, but also the ability to apply these new ideas, and this is where the Sonys, Matsushitas and Nintendos of the world provide a Japanese advantage that China simply does not yet have.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Is Japan still the leading Asian country for innovation?
Author: Press Release
