Regions, absorptive capacity and strategic coupling with hightech TNCs: Lessons from India and China

This article is concerned with what conditions successful development of high-tech regions in developing countries. It argues that the recent regional turn in development studies should be welcomed as regions play an increasingly important role for high-tech industries in developed and developing countries. While acknowledging the insights stemming from the regional turn the article nevertheless argues the need to extent the theoretical perspectives and to apply a regional innovation systems (RIS) approach. RIS has its strength in theoretically linking regions and high-tech industries. This article contextualises RIS to the situations characterising developing countries. Special attention is paid to how regions in developing countries can engage in a strategic coupling with high-tech TNCs. The importance of RIS as an analytical approach and tool for policy prescription is illustrated by two Asian high-tech cases, namely Bangalore's IT RIS in India and Shanghai's high-tech RIS in China.