The National technology system framework: Sanjaya Lall’s contribution to appreciative theory.

Sanjaya Lall has grappled with the dilemmas of development by concentrating his life-long research on technology, international trade, manufacturing and industrial development largely but not exclusively in the developing world. He constructed taxonomy on low technology; resource based products, medium technology intensive and high tech intensive products and tried to measure the challenges, opportunities and difficulties for resource based producers like the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to enter into medium and high technology intensive manufactures. The rich empirical work undertaken on the developing economies, South East Asia and others has led him to formulate the appreciative concept of National Technology System (NTS). In this paper we distinguish between the development and relationship between formal and appreciative theories in general and the NTS and national system of innovation (NSI) concepts in particular. We shall attempt to examine, compare and contrast broadly Sanjay Lall’s appreciative NTS concept in relation to the national innovation system approach in the context of the debate for generating the appropriate and relevant heuristics to get clearer comprehension of the dynamics and processes involved in both technology acquisition and efficiency for economic competitiveness and development.

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Has also been produced as a working paper for The Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building System, 2009