Research Sub-Contractor, Mohammed Ahmad S. AL-Shamsi [top 100 books to read TXT] 📗

Book Review by Blueink

"In his new book, Professor Mohammed Ahmad Al-Shamsi posits that any country's lifeblood is its ability to improve research and innovation within its borders, rather than outsourcing ideas or importing them from outside. He believes that his home country, Saudi Arabia, needs to optimize this philosophy. To further that proposition, he offers Research Sub-Contractor: Models for The Decline of The National Research and Innovation System.
The author is clearly passionate about the topic and argues his case thoroughly and convincingly, outlining his hypotheses in chapter titles, then defending them with cogent, thoughtful suggestions. His writing style is crisp and understandable, even to the layperson.
While Al-Shamsi's proposal is aimed at Saudi Arabia, his ideas are adaptable for any nation or entity. In fact, some of his proposals are directly based on observations of similar plans from other countries, such as Japan's "blueprint for a super-smart society," as the author dubs it, which itself was an updated version of Germany's Fourth Industrial Revolution. One innovative idea the author suggests is to purchase manufacturing equipment, reverse engineer it, then recoup its initial cost by selling the goods produced.
The author also provides examples of homegrown innovations that began as individual efforts but formed the basis for global business, such as a memory optimization technology developed by an MIT professor that was later licensed to Intel, Microsoft, and IBM.
Al-Shamsi has the credibility to back up his proposal, having worked for more than a decade in this field, and he has observed and implemented portions of this plan. While his document would benefit by including written citations of his sources, that lack doesn't diminish his presentation.
This is a thoughtful, step-by-step playbook for maximizing research and innovation, not just for countries, but with a little out of the box thinking, the ideas could be re-purposed to improve businesses. Those interested in augmenting their knowledge on the subject would do well to add this book to their collection." - Blueink Review 

Chapter 17: Ingredients of National Economic Growth: Labor, Capital, and The Missing Element

Adam Smith, in the Wealth of Nations, and Karl Marx, in Das Kapital, have made it clear that the economic growth of a nation depends mainly on two elements, capital and labor, which are the main inputs into the economic ecosystem of a nation.

 

 Then came Robert Solo, who explained in his many articles the importance of the missing element from the previous equation: technology and innovation, which he called "technical progress." Professor Solo of Massachusetts Institute of Technology received the Nobel Prize in 1987 in economic sciences. He made it clear that the economic outputs of an economic system through innovation (the new capital) are more productive and of higher value than other types of output.

 

In order to link things together, we return to what Thomas Friedman presented in his book, The World is Flat and the theory of the third globalization. Through changes in the complex global supply chain over the past few decades, the United States of America has developed a strategy to keep generating IP products and shifting services and manufacturing to other countries, such as China, India, and Mexico. Some western European countries have followed suit. Many American products are not produced inside America, even though they are American innovations and designs. For example, Chevrolet and Chrysler cars are made in Mexico. Apple iPhones are manufactured in China. Ray-Ban glasses are designed at the headquarters of the American company and manufactured in Italy and China. Many American tire factories manufacture their products in Russia and Mexico.

 

Some believe that the transfer of these industries from the United States of America to other countries weakens the USA economically and marks the beginning of the end of the country’s economic strength. Friedman suggests that this is a strategy that was engineered to transform the low-level supply chain to require only production (manufacturing activity without thinking) or the implementation of services for other countries, while the state maintains two things: the intellectual production of new technologies and innovations, which in turn guarantee most of the net profit, while the rest of the profit goes to cheap labor wages in countries abroad, which bear the consequences of environmental pollution. Added to this is the capital market, as all of these commodities are sold and purchased in US dollars, which also guarantees the survival of American power.

 

In this way, the importance of caring for the national research and innovation system becomes clear, as this system will guarantee us the most important element in the equation of our economic growth. The shift to intensive industrialization or the provision of distinguished services will not place us at the forefront of development without "technical progress", through which we will contribute in making industries and services of higher economic value and better productivity. We do not mean here by a direction of “technical progress” that we should import technologies and innovations from abroad but rather that we should produce them at home through the national research and innovation system. 

 

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Text: Alshamsi
Publication Date: 04-07-2020

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