Knowledge issues in the global innovation index: Assessment of the state of Saudi Arabia versus countries with distinct development

This paper is concerned with exploring the state of Saudi Arabia with regards to the main knowledge issues of the global innovation index (GII), in order to direct its future knowledge development. For this purpose, the paper follows a method of three main steps. In the first, it organizes GII knowledge issues into a framework of five integrated layers: People’s layer, which is concerned with education and research; technical tools’ layer, which is associated with the Information and Communication Technology; knowledge-in-business layer, which is related to knowledge workers, innovation linkages, and knowledge absorption; knowledge and technology output layer, which is concerned with knowledge creation, impact and diffusion; and finally creativity output layer, which is associated with creative intangibles, goods and services and online creativity. In the second step it investigates these layers for Saudi Arabia relative to four other countries: Brazil and Russia, which are the first two of the distinguished BRIC countries; and Malaysia and South Korea, which are Asian countries that enjoy distinct development drive. The final step discusses the outcome of the investigations and emphasizes future knowledge development requirements for Saudi Arabia.