The role of technology development in national competitiveness — Evidence from Southeast Asian countries

Technology development (TD) plays a key role in national competitiveness (NC) by giving a country a competitive edge in our age of information. Lots of researchers have focused on specific areas of TD, such as technology transfer, technology acquisition, and technology management, in most of developed countries. To our knowledge, however, they have seldom discussed the influence of TD on other categories of NC and vice-versa in developing and less-developed countries. In this study, we examine the influences of each category of NC of TD. Southeast Asian countries are divided into three patterns by means of a cluster analysis. The results show that Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos have the same rank on measures of TD and NC. Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Laos have the same rank on measures of TD and Economic Performance. Malaysia and Thailand have the same rank on measures of TD and Management Capability. In contrast, the TD performance of Southeast Asian countries is worse than the human resources performance because of their insufficient human resources assigned to R&D. Furthermore, based on a strategic grid for comparing the relative performance, four types of country and their achievements are discussed. Singapore outperforms all Southeast Asian countries. Malaysia and Thailand have to leverage their TD resources in order to enhance their NC. The other countries are still hindered in developing the determinants of their NC. Finally, our study offers a path to the identification of how countries of each pattern should supplement their insufficient capabilities, and what are the most important issues that need to be addressed in retuning their TD policies in order to enhance their NC.