Can Developmental Bureaucracy Foster Transformative Technologies?: Diffusion and Adaptation of the DARPA Model in Korea

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Abstract

This paper explores the processes through which an organizational model for R&D funding transformative technologies diffuses and gets adapted by the bureaucracy of a developmental state. It uses the four cases of South Korean ministries’ recent effort to learn from and adopt the model of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a R&D agency in the United States that is credited with targeted funding of transformative technologies such as internet, GPS, and SIRI. It can be read as a developmental state’s ongoing attempt to restructure part of its bureaucratic practices in planning and managing R&Ds to transition from a “fast follower” to a “first mover” in technological innovation.
The unique organizational traits of the DARPA model that drive such innovation are i) its explicit mission toward funding only high-risk, high-impact research that verify drastically new technical concepts, ii) highly unconventional personnel system based on referral based hiring, exceptional pay, and low tenure to allow for timely inflow of best scientific and entrepreneurial talents, and iii) highly empowered program managers (PMs) at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy in planning and managing programs to confer explorative capability in turbulent technological environment (i.e. authority for parallel, rather than sequential programming, overriding peer review evaluation, and active networking with the previously dispersed star scientists).
The findings from the interviews and archival research reveal that while the policy decisions that led to launching of four ARPA-type programs in South Korea was easily legitimated by the bureaucratic elites’ familiar orientation for deriving feasible policy goals from the perceived level of economic development, the model faced severe institutional barriers. The taken-for-granted bureaucratic repertoires and scripts for R&D programming hindered the i) recruitment of highly qualified entrepreneurial and scientific talent and severly constrained ii) PM’s discretion in the development and management of high-risk projects.

Author

• Soul Han, Cornell University