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There have been increasing calls in transition research for a global view of sustainability challenges. We argue that this focus should be expanded from a concentration on the Earth's surface and stratosphere to include outer space. The substantial growth of the space sector over the past decade has seen huge increases in the number of rocket launches, the diversity of actors, and the availability of new essential services that depend on space-based infrastructure. In particular, the rise of satellite-based infrastructure could drive the need for inter-related multi-system transitions across a wide range of Earth-bound sectors. These developments, however, cause diverse new sustainability pressures, such as atmospheric pollution, increased energy consumption, and the accumulation of space debris. To address these challenges, this article proposes earth-space sustainability as a new frontier for sustainability transition research, requiring the expansion of conceptual and analytical tools at the interface of transition and global governance research.

Transitioning economic sectors towards more sustainable futures is a major global challenge, in particular for non-OECD countries. Policymakers in these countries are confronted with a double challenge: how to implement cleaner technologies and infrastructures while at the same time promoting rapid industrial development. In catch-up studies, this trade-off has been increasingly interpreted as providing windows of opportunity for gaining strong leadership in new generations of cleantech industries. In this paper, we maintain that in order to specify how these windows of opportunity can be endogenized, a deeper understanding is needed about whether, how and by whom the directionality of innovation systems can be influenced. For this purpose, we propose an analytical approach that draws on the technological innovation system framework extending the current understanding of directionality in two ways: first, we complement the prevalent top-down perspective with a bottom-up view exemplified by the institutional entrepreneurship literature. Second, we posit that the focus has to be shifted from the manufacturing of single technologies to the transformation of entire socio-technical systems. The presented framework is validated by a case study on recent shifts in the dominant technology in China's urban water management sector. Major changes in the country's sectoral selection environment led membrane bioreactor technology to become the dominant design in urban water management – a development that is unmatched in any other country in the world. Owing to these transformations, China's technology firms outcompete multinational players and therefore they show strong potentials for industrial leapfrogging. However, although the promise to solve environmental problems played a decisive role in the shaping of the selection environment, it remains unclear whether the observed transformation leads the way to a more sustainable sector structure in the longer run. The case, however, still enables us to specify how windows of opportunity can be endogenized through the interplay of different actors trying to shape different layers of the selection environment in a specific sector.

Most accounts of successful technological catch up and the diffusion of foreign sources of knowledge have focused on the role of federal governments. Little is known of how successful sub-national government strategies have evolved to stimulate technological upgrading in particular locations. This paper shows how a network of unique collaboration links that evolved between the Penang government and organizations, foreign multinationals and national firms helped forge strong flows of knowledge among integrated circuits (IC) firms in the sub-national region. Although Penang’s and Kulim High Tech Park’s IC firms still lag technologically behind IC firms in Korea and Taiwan, the evolution of productive networking at the sub-national level has helped stimulate technological upgrading in the region.

This paper draws from an evolutionary study of 36 integrated circuit (IC) production firms to examine the role of institutions and intermediary organizations in supporting technological upgrading in the integrated circuit industry in emerging East Asia. The evidence shows that IC firms in Korea and Taiwan have reached the technology frontier to show that they are deeply rooted on the slope of competition. IC production has also become sticky in Singapore and China where the provision of grants and government-industry coordination have attracted participation in the high value added activities of wafer fabrication, IC design and supportive R&D activities. Although IC production in Malaysia has enjoyed functional upgrading, particularly since 2005, its capacity to follow the path of Singapore and China will depend heavily on the dismantling of ethnic considerations by the government in the promotion of the industry. IC production is not sticky at all in the countries of Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia because of a lack of institutional deepening. Consistent with the global production network approach, the successful experiences examined in this paper show that the development of institutions and intermediary organizations through effective coordination between governments and industry is critical to stimulate technological upgrading in the IC industry.

There has been considerable discussion on the drivers of economic growth in East Asia. While most studies recognize that capital accumulation and macroeconomic management were critical in hastening growth, few have examined systematically and comparatively how policy frameworks – spearheaded through selective interventions – stimulated technical progress and the different performance outcomes achieved by these countries. This article attempts to address the gap by systematically analyzing the investment regimes, sources of finance, technological upgrading and policy frameworks of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand with a view to explaining their economic growth performance

This article examines the relationship between host-site institutional support and regional trade linkages on firm-level technological capabilities in the semiconductor industry in Malaysia. An evolutionary perspective was used to measure technological capabilities using knowledge embodied in machinery, organization, processes and products. The results show that host-site institutional support, and regional trade linkages were correlated with technological upgrading. The relationship between host-site institutional support and technological upgrading was stronger than that between regional trade linkages and technological upgrading. The results show that host site institutional support is more important than regional integration in influencing firms’ capacity to upgrade their technological capabilities.

This article examines the relationships between host-site institutional support and firm-level technological upgrading, and between technological upgrading and domestic production linkages in the semiconductor industry in Singapore. An evolutionary perspective was used to measure technological capabilities using knowledge embodied in machinery, organization, processes and products. The results show that host-site institutional support is important for technological upgrading, and technological capabilities are positively correlated with domestic linkages. Also, domestic linkages rather than regional linkages were correlated with technological upgrading, which is a consequence of Singapore's sophisticated infrastructure compared to its neighbours in South-east Asia.

The financial crises of 1997–98 and 2008–09 each had a debilitating effect on Southeast Asian market economies because of the dominance of exports and foreign ownership. However, the 1997–98 financial crisis positively impacted electronics exports, production and employment, due to a booming US economy. The contraction in demand in the US during the 2008–09 crisis reduced electronics exports from Southeast Asia with the exceptions of Indonesia and the Philippines, which were shielded by regional linkages with Singapore, Malaysia and China. Foreign labour repatriation and fiscal stimulus packages helped Malaysia and Thailand rebound quickly from the 2008–09 crisis. In the Philippines, the 2008–09 crisis expanded further the casualisation of labour as retrenched workers from Malaysia and Singapore returned home. State grants encouraged upgrading in Singapore and to some extent in Malaysia, but the liberal approach of Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand limited them to low-value-added activities....