The future of innovation will hold important implications for developing countries. We are aware, for instance, that the definitions applied in the developed world do not always apply in the developing world. Hence, customised definitions and approaches have evolved through research. We also know that the implementation of Research and Development-based innovation is quite low in developing economies – and especially in my country, Nigeria; but is getting higher in developed economies like the US and UK as well as in emerging ones like China. From that standpoint, I make bold to say that the entire world is approaching an era where innovation will not only explain national competitiveness but will also drive social systems. Today we talk only of product, process, marketing, and organisational innovations. There is a new type that we are adding in Nigeria here, and which I believe will become more popular in the future – that is, diffusion-based innovation or innovation that arises from technology transfer and acquisition of embodied technology. I see many more of such new ideas arising such that we would begin to talk, in the nearest future, of social innovation, intra-innovation and international innovation in the same way that we talk about social, intra- and international entrepreneurship. For developing countries with currently low capability levels, the distance to cover so as to catch up will then be greater.
The future of innovation is also not fuzzy. We can conveniently predict how it is going to go in the coming years, with relatively high accuracy. For instance, given the current national levels of investments in human capital, infrastructure and R&D, as well as the status of these, I can say that not much is likely to be seen as far as radical, high-impact innovation is concerned. Organisation-level and national innovativeness will mostly continue to be predominated by minor incremental changes. At the same time, the rules of competition will become more dynamic because, as organisations better understand the role of innovation, they are likely to proceed on their own to make the necessary investments, thereby stimulating more dynamism in their respective sectors. These necessary investments will mostly centre around the acquisition of embodied technologies, the assimilation and adaptation of these technologies as well as capability acquisition.
It is thus quite imperative for developing nations to continually look inwards and redirect their energies towards the areas where they may have comparative advantage which could be deployed for building competitive advantage in the nearest future. One of such areas is diffusion-based innovation, as mentioned earlier. When we focus more on our perceived strength, it becomes easier to strategically position ourselves for the daunting but surmountable challenges that may come with innovation. It is not a gainsaying that developing countries, especially Nigeria, are richly endowed with a lot of potentials. However, conscious and decisive efforts must be deployed towards taking technology transfer or acquisition of embodied technologies to a level where diffusion-based innovation will become prevalent. And as knowledge increase, developing economies should know better to attach developmental conditions to the transfer of technologies to them.
**I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of my colleague, Mr. Isaac Oluyi, who read and offered useful suggestions on my first draft.
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