ABSTRACT
For many years, economic theories of technology tended to view technological progress as an exogenous variable outside the process of economic development itself (Rosenberg 1982:17). Technological discovery and knowledge production, proponents of this position might argue, is the crucial factor driving the changes in contemporary industrial structure and the international division of labour (Mytelka 1991: Introduction and Chapter 1). The possession of technological capacities makes the wealth of the First World the exclusive preserve of a few advanced industrialised countries and condemns the rest to a marginal existence (Strange 1994a: 137-8). Multinational corporations, as owners and developers of technology, prowl the world conferring their bounty upon those who provide the appropriate infrastructure for foreign direct investment (Reich 1991). Research and development policies are aimed by states at developing independent and sustainable means for improving technologies in the search for competitive advantage in the international economy (Cawson et al. 1990; Hilpert 1991). The productivity of labour and capital is closely associated with new technological developments, as are relative levels of national or corporate competitiveness (Strange 1994a: 136).
