سیاست های دولت در مورد نیروگاه پیشرفته اسرائیل  Government policies towards Israel’s high-tech powerhouse

1. Introduction Silicon Valley is characterized as the high-tech region of the United States. Silicon Valley is the world’s best known area of electronics and computer-related industries whereby its success is a result of effective linkages and cluster policies (Saxenian, 1990, 1994, 2006; Kaplan, 2000; Rosenberg, 2002). The success of US Silicon Valley has become a technology catching up model for countries around the world to follow. In this study, the term ‘Silicon Valley’ is based on the scholarly research of Saxenian (1990, 1994, 2006) using such a prevalent term to describe an area of high-tech industries with network-based structure and agglomeration. The focus of this study is the country case of Israel, one of the most successful countries in replicating the success of US Silicon Valley. The research attempts to understand the government policies contributing to successful start-up nation of Israel. The reason to choose Israel as a case study is because it is the most successful country after the United States in establishing high-tech industries. The creation of Israel’s high-tech Silicon Wadi is recognized as the most successful Silicon Valley-style economy outside the United States. The government policies play an increasing important role in promoting innovation and economic growth. However, there are still considerable knowledge gaps in linking the government policies to innovation financing (Mani, 2004; Hyytinen and Toivanen, 2005). Therefore, this study attempts to fill the gap in the existing research literature. Specifically, the study attempts to answer the main research question – How could Israel become a high-tech powerhouse? The analyses of findings in this study are based on Porter’s cluster model (Porter, 1990, 1998, 2001) and the national innovation system (NIS) concept (Lundvall, 1992, 1998, 1999, 2003). This research aims to provide practical contributions as well as reflections on government policies for promoting national innovative capacity and industrial competitiveness. The policy lessons and experiences drawn from the country case of Israel can be applied to other developing economies. Israel is an innovation driven country having made the successful transition from an underdeveloped economy to a high-tech powerhouse. The country was ranked 24th in the 2014 International Institute for Management Development (IMD) World competitiveness ranking and 27th according to 2014 World Economic Forum (WEF) global competitiveness index. Israel was also ranked 19th in the category of very high human development according to the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Report Index in 2014. Israel was invited as a full member in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an economic group of developed countries since 2010. The competitiveness of Israel is a result of its entrepreneurial culture and the government-led technology policies in venture capital (VC) financing.