If you're a government — say, the Chinese government — looking to spur more innovation in your country, how do you do that? You can think of innovation as a ladder of sorts. It might start with imitation and then progress to adaptation, like tweaking a foreign idea to develop it for a local market. Finally, hopefully, you reach invention, perhaps even big, industry-changing ones. But the steps needed to climb that ladder can be elusive and murky. There's only so much governments can do, says Regina Abrami, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Marketplace’s Tracey Samuelson talked to her about China's efforts at state-sponsored innovation. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
