{"id":315,"date":"2011-08-16T09:21:02","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T23:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/knowledgetoday\/?p=315"},"modified":"2011-08-16T09:21:02","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T23:21:02","slug":"innovation-policy-at-the-global-crossroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/blog\/2011\/08\/innovation-policy-at-the-global-crossroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovation Policy: At The Global Crossroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Kakabadse<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ask what innovation means and you will get a broad cross-section of responses.\u00a0 Some interpret innovation as invention.\u00a0 This was the case at a recent high profile European Commission meeting in Brussels.\u00a0 One of the notables, visibly irritated with the thinking of his colleagues pointedly remarked, \u201cEach week my department gets nothing but bright ideas and inventions, which go no-where!.\u00a0 What we need is to get ideas to market.\u00a0 We need structures that engage.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not mix invention with innovation!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

All knew he was right.\u00a0 Equally all recognised the political message in his few words.\u00a0 European public services are highly politicised.\u00a0 An innovation policy initiative from the European Commission, making its way through the step by step, tiresome European consultation process could find itself derailed at the final hurdle because some local interest group, or politician, has leverage with country governments or Brussels.\u00a0 In effect, reform is brought to a halt simply because of some partisan interest.<\/p>\n

Not that the Europeans are that much different to the Americans or Australians.\u00a0 Innovation that would have benefitted the majority is marginalised simply because single political interests dominate big administrations.<\/p>\n

So aligning big capital with efficient big government requires clear lines of delineation between the layers of government.\u00a0 This is one form of innovation.<\/p>\n

A second and more profound level of innovation is that of how ideas are shaped and become the emergent policy of countries or even whole regions.<\/p>\n

Globally, there is a seeming acceptance that the citizen is best served by policies anchored in the free market philosophy.\u00a0 Why such adherence to shareholder capitalism from both the right and left wing of the political landscape, especially from the Anglo American economies?\u00a0 One reason is the subtle shaping of mindset occurring \u2018behind the scenes\u2019 by global networks, such as the most prominent of all, the Bilderbergs.\u00a0 Recent study of this trans-Atlantic gathering of business and political grandees, highlights the free market thinking that ouses from the Bilderberg meetings.<\/p>\n

Yet rather than religiously pounding this one philosophy, the Bilderberger study interviewees referred to the understanding that arises from attracting a divergence of views.\u00a0 True, the investigation shows that the demographics of the attendees is broad.\u00a0 But the question to ask is whether their ontology is comparable and deeply shared?\u00a0 The evidence suggests it is, of course, in favour of shareholder market economics.<\/p>\n

The shaping of mindsets particularly in favour of the free market economy is subtle in its creep. \u00a0It has many of the world\u2019s leaders blind to the advantage of socialised capital, the predominant philosophy driving Germany, Scandinavia and China.<\/p>\n

Thus, innovation on a global basis is at the crossroad \u2013 do we pursue short term, transactional shareholder capitalism or longer term, socialised capital for the purposes of the public good?\u00a0 The fact that we do not openly and enthusiastically debate this issue is testament to the smart power influence of networks as the Bilderbergs.<\/p>\n

In the short term there is likely to be no fundamental shift in the repositioning of capital.\u00a0 On this basis there is equally likely no change in the structure and functioning of government.\u00a0 The major governments of the globe operate exactly as the opaque vested interests desire.<\/p>\n

No innovation in terms of policy design means we are left with innovation meaning invention.\u00a0 With innovation at the global crossroad, we can expect a future of many bright ideas but with very few actually reaching the citizen.<\/p>\n

Andrew Kakabadse<\/a> is a consultant and professor of international management development at the Cranfield University School of Management<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Kakabadse Ask what innovation means and you will get a broad cross-section of responses.\u00a0 Some interpret innovation as invention.\u00a0 This was the case at a recent high profile European Commission meeting in Brussels.\u00a0 One of the notables, visibly irritated with the thinking of his colleagues pointedly remarked, \u201cEach week my department gets nothing but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[12728,205],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innovation","tag-innovation-2","tag-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}