Conclusion

from more advanced countries. This hypothesis seems to be supported by the fact that the correlations are highly significant for the 16 newly industrializing countries while they are not significant for the sample as a whole, which is dominantly composed by industrialized countries.

Both innovation capabilities and sustainability pressures rest on the well-functioning of certain institutions, rather than depending exclusively on a country’s affluence. There are many institutions that overlap in fostering both innovation and sustainable technology development, as for instance the provi-sion of education, the system of quality infrastructure and international link-ages. The strengthening of these institutions enhances the absorptive capacity for sustainability innovations.

Therefore, it may be an interesting strategic option for many catching-up countries to direct catching-up efforts towards the field of sustainable technolo-gies. By entering into these emerging technologies in an early phase through the creation of the necessary framework conditions they may be able to reap benefits of early movers and potentially take technological leadership.

weak sustainability orientations.

Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, China, Chile, and India demonstrate medium absorptive capacities for sustainable technologies, with relatively strong sustainability orientations compared to their medium innovation capa-bilities.

Korea and Taiwan show higher absorptive capacities for sustainable tech-nologies based on a sustainability selection environment at a level com-parable to the group 3 countries but stronger innovation capabilities.

Malaysia and Singapore possess by far the highest absorptive capacities for sustainable technologies having very strong sustainability orientations and very high innovation capabilities, with Singapore excelling at the latter category.

Somewhat contrary to the predictions of traditional catching-up theory fo-cussing on the technological gap, we found that in general the ability to exploit catching-up opportunities in the sustainability domain is increasing with the level of economic development. Future studies should therefore pay attention to the interplay of these counteracting effects on the actual catching-up perfor-mance.

We showed that there are institutions that enhance both certain innovation capabilities and sustainability selection pressures. In order to derive policy recommendations, it should be analyse in more detail to what extent newly in-dustrializing countries can strategically shape institutions that influence their absorptive capacities for sustainable technologies in order to capitalize more effectively on the favourable catching-up conditions: an emerging technology paradigm, less pronounced technological infrastructure lock-ins, and the polit-ical willingness of the industrialized world to share and diffuse technologpolit-ical knowledge within this domain.

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Part II