Libro Blanco Vol I en Ingles

TOWARDS A NATIONAL INNOVATION STRATEGY FOR COMPETITIVENESSVOLUME 1THE CULTURAL CONTEXT“If we have learned anything about the history of economic development, it is that culture makes all thedifference. (Max Weber was right in this)” 26 , states professor David Landes, of Harvard University, subtlyemphasising “all the difference”. This is because there undoubtedly are theoretical principals that reoccur moreor less rigorously independently of the focus of analysis, but it is those particular issues that make economics asocial science that cannot escape the vicissitudes characteristic of the human condition and which make themarket no more and no less than an intricate network of human relations.The unavoidable culture is knowledge and the arts, lifestyles and customs, scientific and industrialdevelopment. It is as much a way of understanding consumption as a way of managing the human resources of acompany. Culture is a defining marker of an era, as well as the living record of social evolution. It is,simultaneously, a snapshot of a group as well as of a nation.Thus understood, culture defines the way in which markets and the State develop, how they areperceived and how people choose to express their participation within it. This explains why each country –andeven region within a country- has its own business culture, its work culture or consumption culture: to get anidea of whether a community is prepared to increase its wealth, you have to find their stories, the myths theyhold, the heroes they admire, the metaphors they use, because economic development is by its very essence acultural process 27 .Certainly, iinnovation is no exception, thus the wide-ranging attitudes found on the issue throughout theworld and, above all, the great variety found among countries in the design of public policies that foster orfacilitate innovation activity 28 .In Chile, one of the first factors working against a good performance in this aspect is precisely the lack ofawareness regarding the importance of innovation and of the factors that form its foundations, a culturalrestraint that blocks the view beyond what has always defined the way of being and understanding and doingthings. This appreciation seems to be supported, for example, by the relative unimportance given to science andtechnology in the primary and secondary education of our students.One of the first factors that should betackled to strengthen innovation in Chile isto massively increase the awareness in thecountry regarding the imperative need toinnovate.26 Landes, David. La riqueza y la pobreza de naciones. Javier Vergara Editor. Argentina 1999.27 Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Don Lavoie. Cato Policy Report.28 Benavente, José Miguel. Antecedentes para el diseño de una política tecnologica nacional. 2004.61