The transformation of the mobile telecommunications industry in Pakistan: A developing country perspective

This paper offers a rare insight into the reality of the mobile telecommunications market transformation in Pakistan. Our analytical framework treats the mobile telecommunications market as a complex socio-technical system. Specifically, we define the telecommunications market as being composed of technology standards and three sets of social actors that include government institutions, network and service providers, and users. In the case of Pakistan, these social actors together determine the adoption of standards and services, and thus shape the trajectory of the market change. Our case study provides evidence that a pro-competition policy is imperative for mobile telecommunications development in developing countries, and an independent regulator is critical in promoting technological innovation.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Reflexivity in New Product Idea Screening*

Pre‐development activities, such as new product idea screening, are considered to play an important role in innovation success. At the screening stage, a management team evaluates new product and service ideas and makes a first go/no‐go decision under high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity. Paying more attention to the decision‐making process in the screening stage appears important because too rigorous a use of rigid evaluation criteria and inflexible methods have been shown to have an adverse effect on market performance of novel products. The present study proposes and tests a model of team‐level antecedents and consequences of reflexivity—the explicit evaluation and discussion of working methods, tools, and criteria within a team. Recently, researchers have proposed that cognitive style and leadership style are major antecedents of decision‐making performance. This study posits that reflexivity offers an explanation of how transformational leadership and cognitive style can eventually affect decision‐making performance in the context of new product idea screening. Results of a survey among 126 top managers from large international firms show that the positive effects of transformational leadership and procedural rationality on the effectiveness and efficiency of screening decision making are largely mediated by reflexivity at the team level. This suggests that screening teams can improve their decision making in the following ways: committee chairs are advised to stimulate openness, develop a stop‐and‐think attitude among screening committee members, and support argument‐based discussion in order to adapt available decision tools, models, and checklists whenever needed. The paper concludes with implications, limitations of the study, and suggestions for further research.     

Multihoming, content delivery networks, and the market for Internet connectivity

Peering points between different Internet service providers (ISPs) are among the bottlenecks of the Internet. Multihoming (MH) and content delivery networks (CDNs) are two technical solutions to bypass peering points and to improve the quality of data delivery. So far, however, there is no research that analyzes the economic effects of MH and CDNs on the market for Internet connectivity. This paper develops a static market model with locked-in end users and paid content. It shows that MH and CDNs create the possibility for terminating ISPs to engage in monopolistic pricing towards content providers, leading to a shift of rents from end users and content providers to ISPs. Implications for future innovations are discussed.     

Collective action for market chain innovation in the Andes

The Papa Andina network employs collective action in two novel approaches for fostering market chain innovation. The participatory market chain approach (PMCA) and stakeholder platforms engage small potato producers together with market agents and agricultural service providers in group activities to identify common interests, share market knowledge and develop new business opportunities. These forms of collective action have generated commercial, technological and institutional innovations, and created new market niches for Andean native potatoes grown by poor farmers in remote highland areas. These innovations have benefited small farmers as well as other market chain actors. This paper describes Papa Andina’s experiences with collective action for market chain innovation. It then discusses the implications of these experiences for the understanding of collective action and the policy implications for research and development organizations.     

The multinationalisation of South African telecommunications firms into Africa

The study investigates the main factors considered by telecommunications firms when making a decision to undertake Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This encompasses the reasons for investing, the methods of entry into the identified market and the factors influencing their decision. The methodology employs a survey questionnaire which was sent to telecommunication firms representing 80% of the revenue generated by this sector in SSA. The research reveals that market size, regulatory environment and government policy are the three most important factors influencing the decision to undertake FDI. Furthermore, the main reasons for deciding to enter SSA are for market and profit growth due to saturation in their existing markets, as well as for diversification of risk. They demonstrate the key competencies that South Africa Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) have in navigating the complexities of doing business in institutional voids. The liability of being from the relatively small emerging market of South Africa and operating in a country of institutional uncertainty has allowed South African companies to internationalise into markets that other MNEs will not venture into and thus turn a liability into an advantage.     

Net neutrality and innovation at the core and at the edge

How would abandoning Internet net neutrality affect content providers that have different sizes? We model an Internet broadband provider that can offer a different quality of service (priority) to heterogeneous content providers. Internet users can potentially access all content, although they browse and click ads with different probabilities. Net neutrality regulation effectively protects innovation done at the edge by small content providers. Prioritization, instead, increases both infrastructure core investment and welfare only if it sufficiently stimulates innovation from the large content provider.     

The innovating region: toward a theory of knowledge-based regional development

This paper sets forth a model of knowledge-based regional development conceived as a set of multi-linear dynamics, based on alternative technological paradigms. Utilizing longitudinal data from a Swedish region, and international comparisons, four stages of development are identified: Inception, Implementation, Consolidation and Renewal. Innovation policy is created 'bottom-up' as an outcome of 'collective entrepreneurship' through collaboration among business, government and academic actors – the 'triple helix'. The key event is the creation of an entrepreneurial university, whether from an existing academic base or a new foundation, which takes initiatives together with government and industry to create a support structure for firm formation and regional growth. The result of these initiatives is a self-sustaining dynamic in which the role of academia and government appears to recede as industrial actors come to the fore and a lineage of firms is created. Nevertheless, as one technological paradigm is exhausted and another one is needed as the base for new economic activity, the role of academia and government comes to the fore again in creating the conditions for the next wave of innovation.     

Global political economy of technology standardization: A case of the Korean mobile telecommunications market

This paper examines empirical cases of standardization in the Korean mobile market as vehicles for approaching the broader political and institutional context of standardization in telecommunications. A consideration of Korean standardization in the mobile telecommunications market is particularly interesting because it reveals how the state's political interests influence standards decisions, which are primarily driven by market and technological changes in telecommunications. Judged from the social construction of technology perspective which sheds light not only on technology itself but also on political, social and economic interests that surround transformations in technology, this paper highlights power relations among the major actors that have made technology standards decisions in Korea regarding second (2G) and third-generation (3G) mobile telephony. The paper also attempts to show how the Korean government has dealt with the diverse interests of various market actors while pursuing its own policy agenda.     

Flexibility in industrial service relationships: The construct, antecedents, and performance outcomes

Exchanges between service providers and their customers on business markets increasingly take place in the form of long-term business relationships. These relationships are governed through formal or informal agreements. However, actors are bounded in their rationality and find it impossible to contemplate all possible future contingencies. The more formal and detailed the contracts they conclude, the likelier it becomes that at least one actor is going to perceive a need to adjust the initial agreement as environmental events unfold. In this case, the actor relies upon his partner's flexibility. This paper deals with service providers' flexibility and presents empirical results from the market research sector including outcome variables (satisfaction, trust, commitment) and determinants of service provider flexibility (uncertainty, relationship-specific investments, mutuality, long-term orientation). Empirical results suggest that service provider flexibility is an important determinant of customer satisfaction, trust, and commitment.     

The Collaboration of Innovation Intermediaries and Manufacturing Firms in the Markets for Technology

Many manufacturing firms have opened up their product innovation processes and actively transfer knowledge with external partners in the markets for technology. However, the markets for technological knowledge have remained inefficient in comparison with the markets for most products. To reduce some of the market inefficiencies, manufacturing firms may collaborate with innovation intermediaries, which are defined as organizations that act as agents or brokers in the innovation process between two or more parties. These innovation intermediaries comprise different service providers ranging from consulting companies to Internet marketplaces for technology. In light of an increasing importance of intermediary services in the context of open innovation, this paper specifically focuses on the collaboration of manufacturing firms and innovation intermediaries, which may be critical for the success of intermediary services. Based on new interview data from 30 innovation intermediaries and 30 European manufacturing firms, this paper examines the question of how innovation intermediaries and manufacturing firms collaborate concerning the following issues, which emerged as the key themes from the interviews: potential of intermediation, roles of intermediaries, types of intermediation, drivers of intermediation, complementarity of intermediation, compensation of intermediation, and the importance of repeated collaborations. The findings indicate how manufacturing firms may reduce their transaction costs in technology markets by collaborating with intermediaries. However, intermediary services can only be regarded as a complement rather than a substitute of manufacturing firms' internal activities of managing technology transfer. Thus, manufacturing firms need sufficient internal capabilities for managing technology transfer, such as absorptive capacity and desorptive capacity.     

The FCC’s Net Neutrality Decision and Stock Prices

More than a year after a court invalidated its “net neutrality” rules on broadband Internet service providers (ISPs), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to extend public-utility (Title II) regulation on broadband services. This paper uses traditional event analysis of the movements in the values of major communications and media companies’ equities at key moments in the FCC’s path to this decision to estimate the financial market’s assessment of the likely effects of regulation on ISPs, traditional media companies, and new digital media companies. The results are surprising: the markets penalized only three large cable companies to any extent, and even these effects appear to have been short-lived. The media companies, arguably the intended beneficiaries of the regulations, were unaffected.     

Customer collaboration,service firms' diversification and innovation performance

To sustain competitive advantage, service firms must adapt to the market environment, often by means of diversification and innovation. While extensive research has focussed on the role of customer collaboration in service firm innovation performance, fewer studies have examined the role of firm diversification in this relationship. This study draws on the resource-based view and dynamic capability literature to explore relationships between customer collaboration, diversification and innovation performance of service firms. A conceptual framework was developed and tested using a survey of 156 mining equipment, technology and services (METS) firms in South Australia, and case studies. The findings indicate that service and market diversification mediate the relationship between customer collaboration and innovation performance. Importantly, our findings demonstrate that customer collaboration has no direct effect on the innovation performance of service firms. The research helps practitioners and policymakers to understand the importance of enhancing collaboration across supply chains to build diversified and resilient to downturns in traditional sectors service economies.     

Uncertain prospects for ISDN : A Spanish view

Operators of telecommunications networks, network systems manufacturers and policy markers have placed their hopes on ISDN for a stable and brilliant telecommunications future. However, non-voice service providers, customer premises equipment manufacturers and large users fear that the envisaged network approach will not serve their future requirements. Telecommunications networks will have a strategic importance in national economic development. It is important not to constrain that development by tying them to an inappropriate and inflexible network structure. In this article the uncertainties of the ISDN network are reviewed, questions are raised and the evolution of the network is examined, from the perspective of the actors involved in the sector: large users, equipment manufacturers, policy makers and service providers.     

Gravitating toward the quadruple helix: international connections for the enhancement of a regional innovation system in Northeast Italy

The majority of previous Regional Innovation System (RIS) studies generally provide a rather static overview of the roles of innovation-creating actors. This article explores a single RIS in Trentino in Italy. The case shows that the roles of three actors (i.e., the provincial government, academia/research centers, and firms) are vital in creating the RIS, and that the provincial-level government policy is important in supporting the innovation activities of regional research institutions and firms aimed at developing their international connections. The public-private research collaboration and international connections of these actors are the key determinants of the development of an advanced RIS, but have largely been ignored in the extant RIS literature. This article extends the existing RIS and Triple Helix research to an international dimension, highlighting the complementary role of international connections within the RIS, thus reflecting a shift toward Quadruple Helix.     

Convergence and unbundling of corporate R&D in telecommunications: is software taking the helm?

This paper presents a view of the changing structure of corporate R&D in telecommunications – one that is close to Adam Smith’s insightful and enduring idea of division of labor – that perhaps we are witnessing the beginnings of vertical disintegration and unbundling of important segments of the industry’s R&D activity. The paper maintains that the emergence of an independent software industry – aided by the convergence of computer, telecommunications and imaging technologies – and the rapid growth of technology-based alliances are at the heart of this trend. So extensive is the vertical disintegration of R&D that, in 1997, the top 10 independent software vendors in the US spent more on R&D than the combined spending by AT&T and Lucent whose sales were well over three times as large. It appears that the source of future innovation in the telecommunications industry lies not in its services segment but rather in telecommunications and Internet equipment firms and independent software firms. Increasingly, the fortunes of large service providers like AT&T will depend less on innovation and more on their ability to configure and market complete one-stop-shopping solutions to customers by combining internal resources with outsourced technologies, products and services.     

Exploring the key services and players in the smart car market

The traditional role of cars as a means of transport is now expected to undergo major changes as a result of the emerging smart car industry, whereby connection to the Internet can not only improve traffic safety by enabling self-driving but also entertain passengers. Under these circumstances, it is important to explore the killer services that are expected to be in high demand by consumers and keystone players in the emerging market. This study identifies the promising services from a consumer's perspective using analytic hierarchy process analysis and examines experts' views on which industries and firms, as keystone players, are expected to provide the competitive killer services in the market. The results show that the service that consumers find the most important is driving assistance, followed by infotainment and Internet of Things hubs. Meanwhile, the experts rank the importance of industrial player as in the order of Information Technology device manufacturers, followed by platform providers, automobile manufacturers, and network providers, while at the company level, the rank is in the order of Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, Naver, and SK Telecom, respectively. These findings show that consumers regard smart cars as futuristic vehicles, yet continue to emphasize their conventional value as a means of transport, while the experts expect that among the various industry players, IT companies are most likely to enable the concept of the smart car to become a reality.     

Exploring the mass adoption of third-generation (3G) mobile phones in Taiwan

Given that no all new mobile telecommunications technology are accepted by the mass market, this study aims to understand the mass adoption of third-generation (3G) mobile phones that is hypothesized to comprise three consumer perceptions: new technology, new service, and new handset. Based on the theoretical framework of a consumer's decision making process, an empirical study of the mass adoption of 3G mobile phones in Taiwan was conducted. This study demonstrated that perceived utility of a new mobile service was a key factor that resulted in mass adoption. Further, it was found that perceived utility of a new handset directly stimulate consumers to purchase 3G mobile phones. Perceived risk and perceived expense are not negatively correlated with intentions as hypothesized. Moreover, perceived no need was another key factor that inhibited adoption and purchase intention.     

市场化程度对高技术产业自主创新影响的研究——基于面板分位数回归方法

基于高技术产业2003~2016年细分行业的面板数据,本文主要从政府与市场、非国有经济、产品市场和要素市场4个层面对行业市场化程度进行了描述,并运用面板分位数回归方法实证分析了市场化程度对高技术产业自主创新的影响。研究发现,市场化程度的提升既优化了创新资源的配置效率,又促进了高技术产业自主创新,但市场化程度对产业自主创新的影响存在明显的行业与分布差异性;从市场化程度的不同表现层面来看,政府与市场的关系在创新能力较高的行业更具有重要影响作用,非国有经济的发展和要素市场的发育对产业自主创新的促进作用存在一定的门槛值,而产品市场的发育对创新能力不同的高技术行业的自主创新均有正向影响,且对于创新能力高的行业,其影响更为显著。本文的研究为加快市场化改革进程以推动高技术产业的自主创新起到了积极的探索作用。     

外部网络化与企业组织创新

网络是各种行为主体之间在交换资源、传递资源活动过程中发生联系而建立的各种关系的总和。网络化则是指构建网络这种组织结构的动态过程。网络中的各个主体之间不仅仅是一种交易 ,还应在比较高的信任度基础上进行相互学习和协作。网络中成员间的高度信任能够使交易过程中的谈判成本、监督成本降低 ,机会主义行为减少。网络比市场机制的协调能力更强 ,又比科层组织决策更灵活。外部环境的复杂性和不确定性要求企业能够迅速准确地把握市场需求 ,外部网络化这种组织创新形式 ,为那些以迅速革新为特征的企业提供了强有力的组织支持     

A mixed spectrum management framework for the future wireless service based on techno-economic analysis: The Korean spectrum policy study

The evolution of radio technology and various services has increased the world's dependence on wireless communications. The demand for and value of spectrum resources therefore are also increasing. Spectrum efficiency is the most important factor in managing spectrum scarcity. However, under the current spectrum management approach, it is difficult to adopt innovative technologies that improve spectrum efficiency and flexible usage in the current dynamic wireless market. Recently, there have been several approaches to improve efficient use of spectrum resources, and each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, this research first discusses current issues and analyzes relative social welfare based on the different characteristics of technology and market conditions to compare various attributes of each approach. Based on the techno-economic simulation results, this paper introduces a mixed spectrum management framework for the future wireless service and support policy makers’ decision making. Furthermore, the mixed spectrum policy to spectrum management in Korea is proposed to find a more realistic and efficient spectrum management policy.