Industrial R&D and national innovation policy: an institutional reappraisal of the US national innovation system
从工业研发角度剖析美国国家创新体系放缓的根源，指出开放创新与金融化结合导致社会成本，同时公共研发机构带来社会收益，并提出制度改革建议以促进利益相关者导向的研发治理。
Abstract Studies highlight how the once envied US national innovation system (NIS) is now showing signs of slowing down. In this article, we unpack this issue from an industrial R&D perspective. First, we highlight that open innovation (OI) practices (i.e., external sources and markets for technologies) have increased the rate of inventive activity in the current wave of industrial R&D, but financialization skews the firms’ focus on short-term profits and shareholder value maximization. When OI intersects with an institutional context that propagates such shareholder-centric governance of R&D, three social costs are incurred by the US NIS: (i) irrational relationship between risks and rewards, (ii) weak antitrust and intellectual property (IP) rights that result in a lack of business dynamism, and (iii) austerity and weak demand-side policies. We contend that these social costs tilt the R&D trajectory toward incremental R&D at the expense of the blue-sky science needed to retain US leadership in technological innovation. Second, we document three social benefits that public-sector R&D agencies generate for the US NIS: (i) undertaking a technology brokerage role, (ii) creating radical R&D markets, and (iii) embracing stakeholder governance. We emphasize how a hidden “entrepreneurial network state” subtly creates and shapes breakthrough R&D and markets for private sector firms but cannot recoup the rewards for society due to political rhetoric that favors incumbent market power. Third, we recommend both incremental and radical policies to drive institutional reforms that promote a stakeholder-centric form of R&D governance so that the future wave of industrial R&D creates value for society. Overall, we draw attention to the role politics plays in industrial R&D and the US NIS and how small adjustments in institutional dimensions and governance modes can impact the US R&D trajectory and competitiveness.