What can we do about innovation, aside from the grand narratives, in terms of the relationship between the innovative individual and the construction of the small environment?Before solving this problem, it is necessary to sort out the long-term causal chain of innovation, which has long been confused by various opinions, so as to establish a clear causal relationship between innovation and its occurrence.
Innovation is scarce because the realization of any innovation requires basic support conditions.Innovation cannot be achieved when conditions are not met.The first three are called hard foundation support conditions (institutional, economic and human), and the second two are called soft foundation support conditions (cultural and public opinion).There are six variants of this "2+1" model, where innovation paths can be chosen according to their own advantages.According to our previous research, the local policy environment, economic situation, directly constrains the local cultural situation, and the cultural situation shapes the local people's cognitive structure.If this inference is correct, then the path to fostering youth innovation will be clear.
We have spent two years studying the national innovation cost ranking for five consecutive years (2009-2013) and the conclusion is very clear: generally low innovation cost areas, but also areas with strong innovation vitality.According to the decomposition of the cost composition of innovation, it can be further found that the main reason for the low cost of innovation is the relatively low institutional cost, which can be simply understood as a habit.As the spread of this culture further reduces institutional costs and promotes the market economy to become more active, this virtuous circle will shape people's cognitive structure in a quiet way.The opposite is true, with high costs of innovation, mostly in traditional planned economic zones, where institutional costs are severely high, rules defying, and executive orders are the only way forward.
In the causal chain between innovation and environmental conditions, we presuppose a simple causal relationship: innovation is the result of the cognitive schema in the human mind as input and transformed into output.First, if an actor forms a cognitive structure P1 in a certain culture and produces more innovative results than a cognitive structure P2 in another culture, then we can say that the former is preferable to the latter.On this basis, we can call the former program P1 a progressive program, while the underperforming program P2 a degenerative program.Because the same people have different cognitive programs, there are clear differences in innovation performance, and it is reasonable to judge that there are advanced and backward cultures that cause differences in cognitive programs.This can only be explained by the fact that Korea's cultural environment is more conducive to innovation than North Korea's, and that the cognitive patterns created Korea culture are progressive, and that North Korean culture is degenerate.In the case of China alone, the gap in innovation ability and enthusiasm in the East and Midwest can also be explained by this logic.Numerous studies have proven that innovation is the fruit of the tree of freedom.The significance of this universal phenomenon is that it shows us that fostering a cultural environment for innovation is essential.
So far, we can provide a relatively clear path to reform: strengthen the construction of innovation culture to shape the local people's cognitive structure, and once the cognitive structure is formed, a new cognitive pattern will naturally emerge.Perhaps more importantly, once this new culture is recognized and accepted, it will lead to rejection and resistance to degradation programmes, which will force institutional costs down, leaving more room for innovation to converge.
Cultural change has historically been slow and difficult, but it is possible to achieve it when there is a consensus among public preferences and identities.The biggest obstacle we encounter here is the familiar "material determination consciousness", which leads to a series of lazy thinking patterns: the foundation of the mouth is not good, so it can not make any difference.This has become almost a universal reason.How do we solve this problem?Fortunately, after more than 30 years of reform, everywhere has a certain material foundation, basically has been able to solve the most basic survival requirements, at this time, demand upgrading is a universal preference.Just think of the strategic arrangements of the average Chinese family: no matter how hard the family is, it must also let the child read, this investment structure is far-reaching.This is the case at all levels of local government.Economic deprivation may be short-lived, but cultural poverty is long-lasting poverty.There is also a problem to be wary of: the current trend of cultural retroism, which is very popular, objectively speaking, Confucian culture is the product of agricultural civilization, its main function is ethical discipline.Allowing cultural retroism to proliferate without boundaries can degenerate entire societies at a cost that our generation cannot afford.
Generally speaking, there are two ways to change the local culture: first, to increase local investment and training; and second, to attract the inflow of foreign talents through institutional arrangements.Access to external intellectual resources is always one of the most convenient paths.So how can we attract foreign talent?If you look at the settlements people choose, it's easy to see that most of those chosen are characterized by a sound market environment, effective functioning of the rule of law, fairness and compliance with contracts, and low institutional costs.This is no secret, as long as the manager has the courage and responsibility to reform, boldly learn and debug, and more importantly, reduce the cost of the system itself is one of the biggest innovation environment construction content.With the deepening of globalization, all resources will flow from the high institutional cost region to the low institutional cost region, which is the general trend.Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that after this round of competition, some areas will be completely reduced to the desert of innovation, in this sense, the seeds of innovation will always grow on the cultural highlands.