Investigating the challenges of applying local-content policies for promoting technology capacity in broadcast industry

Abstract

Governments are an important buyer of goods and services, such a role caused the public procurement, to be recognized as an important policy tool at the disposal of the government to improve the capacity of domestic companies. Directing public procurement to achieve development goals is one of the most important innovation policies on the demand side, which enables governments to create new markets for technological and innovative companies and thereby improve their technological capabilities. The broadcasting industry, as the basic infrastructure of the Iran national media (IRIB), has been considered in this research due to its features such as rapid changes in technology, long life of manufactured products, small domestic market and the intangibility of the social impact of innovative domestic production activities. By adopting a qualitative approach, after reviewing the background of the research, the framework and questions of in-depth interviews were determined and interviews were conducted with fifteen experts in the broadcast industry. Based on the analysis of the content of the identified categories and the extraction of organizing categories and then comprehensive categories, it was found that creating demand and protecting the market, environmental factors and organizational level factors along with the innovation cycle are the most basic categories of using government procurement in promoting technology in this industry .Therefore, it is necessary to seriously consider at least the guarantee of purchase, the development of the domestic and international market by supporting exports, and amending the laws. Finally, Policy implications for promoting exports in the broadcast industry is highlighted.

Keywords

• public procurement
• innovation policy
• broadcast industry
• demand-side policy