Policy and divergent strategies of knowledge management: European lessons useful for chinese innovation policy?

There is a tendency among national and regional policy-makers to favour high tech industries, based on a general belief that a major focus on knowledge intensive activities is the key to welfare. The EU research project PILOT (Policy and Innovation in Low-Tech), carried out in several European countries, demonstrated that innovation and knowledge creation also take place in low and medium tech industries, and that these industries develop specific strategies for knowledge generation and accumulation. This paper argues that we should move away from the static 'high-tech/low-tech' classification and, instead, should acknowledge the existence and validity of divergent paths towards success in the knowledge economy. It is true that diversity is more difficult to manage by policy institutions; but a policy bias towards high-tech may effectively undermine the future potentialities of medium and low-tech sectors, which still are the major sources of employment and wealth in most western countries. We will try to assess to what extent the conclusions of our research also apply to emerging economies such as China's.