ASSESSING LOCAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT LEVERAGING ON INDUSTRY COLLABORATION PROGRAM (ICP) USING ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY ELEMENTS

Abstract

Industry Collaboration Program (ICP) is an initiative by the Government of Malaysia that leverages on mega procurement to support local industry capacity and capability development. It is envisaged that the ICP platform can create ‘value for money’ in forms of economic returns based on the procurement made. It is capitalised to further enhance current national economic development activities by ensuring participation of local players in high technology industry sectors, such as transportation and security; with the aim to create employment, skills enhancement, and technology development capability within the local firms. The foundation of effective ICP implementation is availability of competent local industry players that consists of competent personnel with relevant know-how and equipped with relevant technology. Therefore, it is desirable that the outcomes of ICP implementation are measurable to assess the impact and one of the methods is by using Absorptive Capacity (AC) elements measurement. This paper had proposed a construct using the AC elements and the Confirmatory Factor Analysis method is used for its validation. Based on the conducted analysis on the stipulated hypotheses, some confirmations and gaps for further research had been obtained for conclusion.