Scaling Innovation in Southeast Asia: Empirical Evidence from Singapore, Penang (Malaysia), and Bangkok

Abstract

Our survey of 1,600 manufacturing firms in Singapore, Penang, and Bangkok shows that the breadth and efficiency of innovative activities still lag considerably behind those found in eleven European regions. Co-operations are virtually indispensable for corporate innovation processes in the region. Their strong orientation towards headquarters or R&D centres of multinational corporations and lead users in technologically advanced countries yields a discontinuous territorial pattern of linkages in which firms 'leapfrog' neighbouring ASEAN countries, contrasting sharply with the distance-decay pattern found in Europe. Further research should employ multi-dimensional concepts of space to accommodate the territorial, techno-economic, organisational, relational and temporal dimensions of innovation networks.