温州鞋革产业中小企业集群创新系统 第5页
that an engineering education imparts a set of problem solving skills, methods of thinking logically and learning tools that help quick adaptation to changes in technology, domains and tasks. Since Indian firms provide services across a range of platforms and domains, this is an important asset. Another important consideration has to do the quality signaling in the labor market. The Indian education system is such that competition for an engineering education is intense, and as a result, graduating with an engineering degree is a signal of qualities such as intelligence and willingness to work hard. Software firms may prize these qualities more than the specific substantive knowledge of engineering.
If so, this is certainly an inefficient allocation of resources.17 Indeed; the software industry has been growing in part by drawing away engineers from other industries. In our interviews we came across a number of instances of engineers with highly specialized training (such as VLSI design or satellite systems) working on tasks such as database design or development of business application software. Quite a few senior level engineers were drawn from a variety of public sector research and development institutions. Such a transfer of resources is entirely in line with the presumed comparative advantage in software development. Of course, there are a variety of distortions in the Indian economy, which imply caution in interpreting the market signals.18 In addition to changing the composition of economic activity, the increasingly tight market for engineers and managers is also likely to affect the organization of economic activity. As we discuss in greater detail in section 6, the increasing demand for trained engineers and managers is also affecting the balance between capital and labor (or more precisely, between capital and human capital), resulting in organizational innovations.
The clearly increasing payoffs to human capital are also inducing greater investment in human capital. The Indian middle class has always relied upon education, particularly professional education such as engineering or medicine as means of economic advance. However, with a slowly growing economy, the returns to such investments have not been very high. The precarious state of public finances has limited the ability of the central and state governments to expand tertiary education. The rapid growth of the software sector has however, marked a watershed. One of the most rapidly growing sectors within the software industry is for private training.
Private training institutions train individuals specifically for work in software development. NASSCOM sources estimated that there were 3800 such training firms in 1998, in what was then a $300 million market, although together NIIT and Aptech are believed to have 70% of the software training market. Private training institutes are also important for helping existing software developers acquire new skills. Many engineers also undertake further training in software development on their own from private training institutes. The growing presence of private training institutes in cities in India is increasingly making it possible for software developers to obtain certificates and diplomas from such institutes.
It is also noteworthy that this is a private sector response to a market opportunity, namely the demand for training in specialized skills. In the US and elsewhere, for profit firms compete with a variety of public institutions, such as state and community colleges in the US. In India, the rapid growth of private training institutes testifies to the changed economic climate and the channeling of entrepreneurship into economically productive areas away from mere rent-seeking. This change, too, owes at least indirectly to the rapid growth of the software industry.
To sum up the foregoing, we believe the evidence indicates that until recently, an excess supply of trained engineering talent was a significant source of competitive advantage for Indian firms. By the same token, it provided few incentives for firms to economize on the use of skilled engineering talent. Instead, the growth of the industry and high salaries have attracted not only newly graduating engineers but also engineers, managers and other professionals from other industrial sectors.
Despite this, the explosive growth in the software industry has lead to a stage where firms recognize that skilled engineers, software professionals and good managers are a scarce resource. Moreover, faced with a number of attractive options including a move overseas, these talented engineers and managers are looking for more money and a more professional and rewarding work environment. In turn, this entails a variety of organizational changes we discuss below.

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