Innovation in the backward linkage firms in Ghana’s gold mining sector

ABSTRACT This contribution illustrates how Freeman’s ideas, concepts and approach, helped me build my framework of thought for my paper on innovation in supply firms to the gold mining firms in Ghana. Freeman’s theory of the National System of Innovation helped me to better understand the importance of government policy in developing the innovative capacity of firms. My research discovered that Ghana’s local content policy had increased local participation in the gold mining industry. Yet the lack of investment in the development of the technological capacity of firms and research institutions had led the firms that supply to the gold mining companies to import most of the items on the procurement list without adding any value.