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As the innovation systems approach becomes increasingly transferred from developed to developing countries as a framework for achieving increased productivity, the notion of deficient institutions becomes more important. Prior research on innovation systems has adopted a broad treatment of institutions that has resulted in an omission of the impact that deficient institutions have on implementing innovation. Towards providing a treatment of institutions that is more specific and by extension, accounts for the impact of deficient institutions within developing country innovation systems, this thesis on the account of both the personcentric characteristic of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur’s ability to deal with uncertainty focused on answering the research question: How do entrepreneurs deal with deficient institutions in developing country innovation systems in order to introduce innovation? By considering the context of the Nigerian film industry innovation system, this thesis showed that entrepreneurs dealt with the deficient institutions by substituting them with informal institutions during their interactions with Nigerian actors, and with formal institutions that looked to be external to the Nigerian environment when interacting with international actors. In addition to this, the decision to use these institutions was seen to have been influenced by both the situations that the entrepreneurs faced and their personal experiences personal experiences. By showing this, the thesis contributed to the literature on innovation systems by providing a more nuanced understanding of institutions in comparison with what previously existed. Another contribution was the introduction of agency (through analytical focus on the entrepreneur) within innovation systems research.

The following is a conceptual study that seeks to bring together the Innovation System concept and the internal audit profession to develop a universal and transferable audit framework that aims to test organizational compliance against established internal controls and audit criteria. For this study, the literature surrounding innovation systems was reviewed in order to uncover internal controls within the system that public sector organizations such as governments are responsible for implementing. Findings from the literature review were then validated through consultation with innovation leaders in the Canadian federal government; they also 'contextualized' the findings within the Canadian federal public sector. Additional internal controls and audit criteria were identified through a content analysis of a sample of 11 internal audits conducted by Government of Canada departments and agencies. The internal controls derived from these sources were the basis for developing audit criteria that could be tested for each of the internal controls respectively. The Innovation System internal controls identified within this study were governance, monitoring, strategic decision-making, and oversight; stakeholder/actor interactions and knowledge and information exchange/flows; supporting policy and funding; incentives for private investment and adoption of innovation; and intellectual property rights. A total of 60 audit criteria were created and included in the comprehensive audit framework at the end of this study.

National innovative capacity, a central driver of countries’ long-term economic growth, has been one of the focal points in innovation research for roughly thirty years. Initially proposed as an index to measure technologic invention over time, this concept has become the widely accepted standard for measuring the performance of (sub) national and sectoral innovation systems toward being an analytic tool attributed to innovation systems theory. Country comparison, knowledge flows, and R&D forecasting are in the center of analysis feeding the concrete practical use of innovation policy optimization. In this regard, a rich body of studies has contributed indispensable knowledge about the determinants of innovative capacity. However, the multi-dimensional interconnections have not been covered in depth. Thus, to gain a holistic understanding of the “DNA” behind national innovative capacity a new “comparative” view of these determinants is necessary. To this end, this dissertation proposes revisiting the focus, unit and parameters of analysis that predominate within current national innovative capacity studies and sets forth three interlinked academic articles that focus on different layers of innovative capacity in countries. Besides furthering academic discourse on the determinants of innovational outcome, this conceptual revision leads to a new approach on national innovation capacity research. Its intention is to make policy makers aware of certain pathways leading to the same outcome. This knowledge will enable them to pursue a dynamic approach of supporting the innovative processes in countries by defining appropriate innovation strategies that consider both the countries’ specific preconditions and the sub-systems perspective.:1. Introduction 2. The purpose of revisiting the NIC concept for innovation policy 3. The scientific contribution of this doctoral thesis 3.1 Article 1: Increasing the national innovative capacity: Identifying the pathways to success using a comparative method 3.2 Article 2: National Health Innovation Systems: Clustering the OECD countries by innovative output in healthcare using a multi-indicator approach 3.3 Article 3: Increasing the innovative capacity of European cities: Making use of proven concepts from the national level 4. References

Uganda’s economy is agro-based; although the country is land locked it has great potential for industrial development. It is well endowed with natural resources and salubrious climate, but with little success in transforming its agricultural and mineral wealth into processed commodities for local, regional and international markets. The Uganda’s National Development Plan 2010- 2014 and Uganda Vision 2040 call for a transformed Ugandan society from a peasant to a modern and prosperous country within 30 years. To achieve this goal, Ugandan economy needs to be industrialized. This need is one of the identified strategic bottlenecks. Various strategies and action plans have been developed to steer the country’s economy towards sustainable development and increased competitiveness but with little success. It has been recognized globally that economic development depends heavily on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are the prime source of new jobs and play a crucial role in income generation as well as in industrialization processes. However, most small businesses fail within their early stages of operation mainly due to under-capitalization and / or lack of proper management and business skills. Globally, through business incubators, start-ups and SMEs have been significantly enhanced to overcome their initial and critical stages of development. Business incubators have been tried in Uganda but not in a successful way. An Open Innovation Business Incubator is a physical or virtual environment that combines the attributes of open innovation and business incubation concepts in creating and supporting new start-ups. This research aimed at understanding more of the situation in Uganda, how the innovation systems and incubators are managed in other countries and to design a model for how to create better conditions for incubators in Uganda and similar low-income countries and stimulate industrial development. The proposed model has adopted an open innovation approach and a list of suggestions and recommendations has been made. Different methodological tools and participatory approaches were utilized in the process of undertaking the study to achieve the objectives. Data were collected through literature review, analysis of relevant theories such as industrialization, entrepreneurship, science, technology and innovation, business incubation, triple helix and clusters theory, open innovation, and public private partnerships. Review of Government reports and policy documents, discussions with industrial and incubation experts, surveys, focus group discussions and case studies were done. Useful ideas were obtained from seminars and conferences. Research findings indicated that: • There are hardly any graduate incubatees in Uganda, thus there is a need to foster partnerships and synergies between government, private sector/non-government organizations and academia for open incubation, • All incubators in Uganda focus on incubatees developing technologies and products but not on business models , • Open innovation incubators combined with entrepreneurial oriented strategies can effectively support start-ups and SMEs but requires strong mutual trust amongst actors, • Through public-private partnerships and open innovation incubators, industrial transformation can be stimulated.

This thesis investigates whether and how public policies can help build industrial clusters. The research applies a case study method based on 60 interviews to the emerging information communication technology (ICT) clusters in Scotland and Hong Kong. The analysis uses Molina’s sociotechnical constituency (STC) framework and its associated ‘diamond of alignment’, which help focus on two interrelated dimensions: 1) the complex technical and social aspects of the design, implementation and evolution of the Scottish and Hong Kong ICT clusters and 2) the difficulties of developing a cluster in the context of major diversity of organisational interests and patterns of interaction. This research revealed that the cluster building effort in the two regions has been fraught with difficulties due to misalignment between the perceptions and pursuits of policy makers and the interests of industry members. This thesis concludes that cluster building is an evolutionary process of sociotechnical alignment which can be facilitated by feedback and learning. It also suggests that for successful cluster building to take place, policy makers should focus on stimulating the processes of cluster formation, including the building up of the technological capabilities of the industrial actors, while facilitating the integration of the major actors’ interests and demands with the policy programmes. Cluster building involves the development of new ways of thinking as well as the practice of networking; it necessitates the coherent effort of collective learning and a long-term commitment to change the existing technological system. A long-term adaptive policy programme should be pursued to focus on effectively aligning the interests and pursuits of the different actors in the cluster at various stages.

According to conventional wisdom, the petroleum industry is classified as a ‘resource based’ and ‘mature’ industry. It is subject to the ‘resource curse’ thesis, exhausted of ‘technological opportunities’ with limited capacity for knowledge based economic growth. This study questions the adequacy of this line of reasoning. Exploring the technological complexity of the sector, a complementary argument is presented. We show that the sector has recently experienced a surge in ‘technological opportunities’. However the ‘systemic complexity of the knowledge base’ has constrained many oil producing countries’ enjoyment of these opportunities. This view highlights the role of dynamics of knowledge base complexity as an important ‘cognitive’ barrier for building innovation capabilities in endowed countries. This study is based on the extension of a ‘Sectoral Innovation Systems’ approach, highlighting the role of technological regimes in catch-up possibilities and strategies. Knowledge base complexity is explored as an under-researched element of technological regimes. The research contributes in three ways. First, it introduces a dynamic and three-dimensional view of knowledge base complexity at the conceptual level, and hypothesizes its implication for patterns of innovation and catch-up processes. Second, a quantitative methodology is developed to examine the proposed hypotheses. Third, the conceptual and methodological suggestions are empirically examined in the context of upstream petroleum industry. The findings propose that the sector has gone through phases of transformation and reconfiguration. The sector’s technological regime over the most recent period experienced high opportunities combined with rising systemic complexity of the knowledge base. We show that this trend in technological regimes is associated with shift of the sector from Schumpeter Mark I to II and with the emergence of major Integrated Service Companies as new system integrators coping with rising systemic complexity. We also observe that rising systemic complexity is associated with slow down and halt of geographical dispersion of innovation. The sector-wide cumulativeness stemming from systemic complexity creates high cognitive barriers to entry for latecomers. The very scarce examples of catch-up in a few advanced oil producing countries suggest that high innovation opportunities in complex industries are open mostly to countries with both advanced national innovation systems and accumulated production experience. For latecomer countries to benefit, their industrial policy needs to cope with increasing systemic complexity, mitigating its coordination costs and facilitating the integration of distributed catch-up processes. This highlights the key role of ‘late comer systems integrators’ for successful catch-up.

O Sistema de Inovação (SI) brasileiro é caracterizado por um estágio intermediário de desenvolvimento e pela forte participação do Setor Público, refletindo assim em seus grandes dispêndios em C&T. O SI é considerado, no cenário atual, como determinante ao desenvolvimento e crescimento econômico das economias modernas. Porém, há poucos estudos sobre o papel desempenhado pelas características dos pesquisadores e das infraestruturas de P&D sobre a produção científica e tecnológica. Portanto, o objetivo dessa pesquisa é avaliar os efeitos de tais características sobre a produtividade científica individual dos coordenadores pertencentes às 1.756 infraestruturas de pesquisa no Brasil. Para tal, o trabalho utiliza um mapeamento inédito das infraestruturas nacionais realizado pelo Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação em parceira com o CNPq e o IPEA, e a extração das características individuais dos pesquisadores por meio da Plataforma Lattes. As infraestruturas de pesquisa foram agrupadas por meio da Análise de Cluster, o qual gerou três clusters que se distinguem pelo escopo de suas atividades, áreas científicas e composição do capital físico e humano. Os pesquisadores com maiores produtividades são àqueles presentes no cluster 2 (multiatividades, Engenharia e Ciências Biológicas, estrutura organizacional piramidal), em detrimento aos presentes no cluster 1 (pesquisa e desenvolvimento de tecnologia, Multiárea) ou 3 (intensivos em pesquisa, Engenharias e Ciências Exatas e da Terra, estrutura organizacional horizontal). Os resultados dos modelos de regressão, OLS e Tobit, estimados indicam que quanto maior o número de estudantes bolsistas, maior a produtividade do coordenador, bem como a relação capital-trabalho da infraestrutura. Por fim, o presente estudo contribui ao preencher uma lacuna de informação sobre o sistema brasileiro de C&T e após exercícios econométricos foi possível concluir que as dimensões do SI nacional, relacionando capital humano, independente da qualificação, e físico, são determinantes aos níveis de produtividade dos coordenadores. / The Brazilian innovation system (IS) is characterized by an intermediate stage of development and the strong participation of the public sector, reflecting its large share in expenditure on S & T. The IS is considered, in the current scenario, a key factor to development and economic growth of modern economies. However, there are few studies on the role played by the characteristics of the researchers and research infrastructure on scientific productivity. Therefore, the aim of this research is to evaluate the effects of these characteristics on individual scientific productivity of the coordinators belonging to 1,756 research infrastructures in Brazil. To do this, the work uses a unique mapping of infrastructure in Brazil by the Ministry of ST & I in partnership with CNPq and IPEA, and the extraction of the individual characteristics of the researchers through the Lattes Platform. The research infrastructure were characterized by the Cluster Analysis, which generated three clusters distinguished by the scope of its activities, scientific areas and composition of physical and human capital. Researchers with higher productivity were present in cluster 2 (multi-activities, Engineering and Life Sciences, pyramidal organizational structure) rather than those present in the cluster 1 (research and development of technology, multi-area) or 3 (research intensive, Engineering and Exact and Earth Sciences, horizontal organizational structure). OLS and Tobit regression models results indicate that the larger the number of scholarship students and capital-labor ratio of the infrastructure the better the productivity of the coordinator. Finally, this study contributes to fill an information gap on the Brazilian system of S & T and after econometric exercise was concluded that the dimensions of the IS, relating human capital, regardless of qualification, and physical, are crucial to the productivity levels of the coordinators.

A Open Innovation (OI) é uma abordagem emergente que têm despertado cada vez mais o interesse de especialistas e de estudos acadêmicos na área de inovação. Entretanto, a implemen-tação dessa estratégia ainda é desafiadora, especialmente para as Pequenas e Médias Empresas (PMEs). A carência de métodos e processos documentados e estruturados para implementar a OI, também são fatores que causam resistências e desestimulam muitas vezes as empresas. Ou-tro fato é que poucas pesquisas e trabalhos empíricos têm explorado o potencial e influência dos Sistemas Regionais de Inovação (SRIs) na implementação da OI nas empresas. Frente a essa problemática de pesquisa, esta Tese tem como objetivo geral desenvolver um processo de implementação da estratégia Open Innovation voltado para empresas de SRIs. O produto final da Tese é um framework que representa o Processo para Implementação da OI (PIOI). É uma ferramenta gerencial que visa auxiliar e orientar os gestores quanto as etapas, documentos, e forma mais apropriada para conduzir a implementação. Sobretudo, permite a compreensão dos elementos e Fatores Críticos de Sucesso (FCS) que interferem na melhoria da capacidade de inovação em PMEs. Este trabalho de Tese está estruturado em sete capítulos, com cinco artigos propostos. O artigo 1 busca identificar os fatores determinantes para a implementação da OI em SRIs. O artigo 2 apresenta uma revisão sistemática da literatura para identificar os FCS para implementação da OI no âmbito das empresas. No artigo 3, desenvolve-se uma pesquisa apli-cada com 50 empresas de um SRI para diagnosticar as estratégias de inovação e os FCS para implementação da OI. No artigo 4, propõe-se um framework para implementação da OI em PMEs de SRIs. No artigo 5, o framework é testado e avaliado empiricamente através de um estudo de caso de uma empresa. A estrutura metodológica geral da Tese está fundamentada no método de pesquisa construtivista (Design Science Research – DSR). Os artigos abrangem le-vantamento bibliográfico, survey, estudo de caso e pesquisa-ação, e empregam ambos os mé-todos, quantitativo e qualitativo, conforme seus objetivos. A Tese oferece importantes contri-buições acadêmicas e práticas ao abordar os FCS que interferem na implementação da OI, e ao desenvolver um processo para implementação dessa estratégia em PMEs de SRI’s. Além disso, representa uma oportunidade para que as empresas possam transformar e melhorar o seu pro-cesso de desenvolvimento da inovação, implementando mudanças de estratégia e introduzindo estruturas mais colaborativas que suportem novos modelos de negócios. / Open Innovation (OI) is an emerging approach that has increasingly attracted the interest of experts and academic studies in the area of innovation. However, implementing this strategy is still challenging, especially for Small and Medium Companies (PMEs). The lack of documen-ted and structured methods and processes to implement OI are factors that cause resistance and often discourage companies, besides the fact that few empirical studies and research have ex-plored the potential and influence of the Regional Innovation Systems (SRIs) in the implemen-tation of OI in companies. Faced with this research problem, this thesis has as general objective to develop a process of implementation of the Open Innovation strategy directed at SRIs com-panies. The final product is a framework that represents the Process for Implementing OI (PIOI). It is a managerial tool that aims to help and guide managers on the stages, documents, and the most appropriate way to carry out the implementation. Above all, it allows the unders-tanding of the elements and Critical Factors of Success (FCS) that affect the improvement of the innovation capacity of PMEs. The thesis is structured in seven chapters, with five proposed articles. Article 1 seeks to identify the determining factors for the implementation of OI in SRIs. Article 2 presents a systematic review of the literature to identify the FCS for implementing OI in companies. In Article 3 we carry out an applied research with 50 companies in a SRI, in order to diagnose their innovation strategies and the FCS to implement OI. In Article 4, we propose a framework for the implementation of OI in PMEs of SRIs. In Article 5, the framework is empirically tested and evaluated through a company’s case study. The general methodological structure of the thesis is based on the constructivist research method (Design Science Research - DSR). The articles cover literature review, survey, case study and action research, and use both quantitative and qualitative methods, according to their goals. The thesis offers important academic and practical contributions by addressing FCS that affect the implementation of OI, and by developing a process to establish that strategy in PMEs of SRIs. In addition, it represents an opportunity for companies to change and improve their innovation development process by implementing strategy shifts and introducing more collaborative structures that support new business models.

Innovation programmes require organisations to transfer both technology and knowledge to the diverse actors who operate within innovation eco-systems. The changing relationship between science and society has witnessed the growth of public private partnerships (PPP) to create new knowledge, while also triggering the emergence of a new role for universities as catalysts for innovation. This brings many challenges, stemming from the inherent nature of knowledge and the complex interactions involved with inter-disciplinary knowledge transfer. Concurrently, these public-funded programmes come under increasing scrutiny to demonstrate greater societal and economic impact as a return on research investment. Knowledge generated within the UK low carbon energy innovation system has the potential to facilitate the achievement of national emission targets. However, while knowledge may be successfully created, there is no guarantee that it will be disseminated and utilised in a way that contributes to the achievement of knowledge-related objectives. Current literature concentrates on the micro level inhibitors and enablers of knowledge transfer; however, a gap in empirical work which investigates system level knowledge interactions is evident. Research and practical application in this field has historically centred on technology transfer whilst under-emphasising the crucial role of knowledge within this complex, socio-technical innovation system. The overall aim of this qualitative study is to achieve a better understanding of the influences of knowledge transfer across a defined innovation system. This is achieved through the perceptions of participants via two case studies; one in a PPP and one in a University. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-eight participants, along with document analysis and participant observation at workshops, to investigate the participant perceptions. A three tier (macro-, meso- and micro-level) data analysis approach was adopted to reflect the systems level interactions. The study found that knowledge transfer is often perceived as the dissemination of information via explicit forms of knowledge, which may or may not be used by stakeholders to achieve innovation objectives. The main barriers to stakeholders utilising knowledge included: accessibility to knowledge; fit-for-purpose knowledge; stakeholder motivation/ability to use the knowledge; and viewing knowledge as an object. While there is an emerging impact agenda in academia, cultural and normative influences direct researchers towards traditional academic outputs (e.g. publications). Knowledge utilisation by stakeholders was found to be maximised through relational, stakeholder driven models, which view knowledge as a process. Knowledge utilisation was context specific, and, due to complex system influences, was never guaranteed to occur. Although planning for knowledge utilisation was undertaken at both the PPP and the University, implementing and measuring results was found to be difficult due to dynamic system influences such as understanding stakeholder motivations, resourcing constraints and complexity in the desired project outcomes. This makes adaptability and responsiveness important qualities for knowledge producers, while also necessitating specific skill sets. Based on this work, a set of principles were developed which should guide more effective utilisation of knowledge and promote more impactful research outcomes.