The Management of Technology (MOT) Degree: A Bridge Between Technology and Strategic Management

This article examines a new degree, the Management of Technology (MOT). To create customer value and competitive advantage in today’s technological environment, bridges must be built between managers who know what needs to be done and technologists who know how to do it. The traditional MBA program has focused on defining what needs to be done vis-a-vis customers and competitors. The traditional MS in technology program focused on how to do it. The emerging MOT programs bridge the two perspectives. Forces creating demand for MOT programs are explored and current MOT programs examined. This paper describes the MS in Technology Management program at Pepperdine University’s George L. Graziadio Graduate School of Business and Management as representative of MOT programs. The author has taught in Pepperdine University’s MS in Technology Management program since 1989.     

Systems assessment of new technology for decision-making in government and industry part II—Case studies

The study of Systems Assessment of New Technology (SANT) proceeds with the use of case studies. The macromodel for science and technology policy is applied to both the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR. While the macromodel relates science and technology to the national economy, another case study addresses the management of technological change in a somewhat more narrow context, i.e., the management of technological change itself. The final case study deals with management information systems which can be used by management in science and technology planning.     

Research Forecasting for Health Information Technology (HIT), using technology intelligence

Due to the rapid pace of change in technology and its impact on society, there is an increasing demand for use of Technology Forecasting methods to improve policy planning and implementation. One such area is the field of Health Care and the impact of Health Information Technology (HIT) on this field. Using HIT has shown to be associated with reduced cost, improved quality, and better patient experience; yet HIT adoption has been slow. Therefore, there is a need to better understand the HIT adoption processes in order to meet the evolving requirements for health care delivery.We propose collecting Technology Intelligence for use in Research Forecasting as part of the larger HIT Technology Forecasting efforts. In this study, we systematically probed for HIT-related technology intelligence in the fields of Information Systems, Engineering Management, and Medical Informatics. Results of our analysis show that all three fields are active in Health IT research, but could benefit from further collaboration. We were also able to identify instances of emerging journals and emerging topics in Health IT research. We conclude that it is indeed plausible and meaningful to collect technology intelligence on HIT adoption, to support the overall goal of improving healthcare delivery.     

News and notes

New Perspectives on Technology and Organization.

Innovative Banking: Competition and the Management of a New Networks Technology J. Howells &; J . Hines Eds) Ldon, Routledge, 1992, 252pp., £40.00 (hbk), ISB-V 0-415-05941-0. Technology and Organization: Power, Meaning and Design H. Scarborough &; J.M. Corbett London. Routledge. 1992, 178pp., ,£15.00, (pbk), ISBN 0-415-05941-0.

Beyond Partnership-Strategies for Innovation &; Lean Supply Richard Lamming Hemel Hempstead, Prentice-Hall International, 1993, ix + 299pp., £19.95 (hbk).

From Anticipation to Action: A handbook of Strategic Perspective Michel Godet.     

The Management of Technology (MOT) Degree: A Bridge Between Technology and Strategic Management

This article examines a new degree, the Management of Technology (MOT). To create customer value and competitive advantage in today's technological environment, bridges must be built between managers who know what needs to be done and technologists who know how to do it. The traditional MBA program has focused on defining what needs to be done vis-a-vis customers and competitors. The traditional MS in technology program focused on how to do it. The emerging MOT programs bridge the two perspectives. Forces creating demand for MOT programs are explored and current MOT programs examined. This paper describes the MS in Technology Management program at Pepperdine University's George L. Graziadio Graduate School of Business and Management as representative of MOT programs. The author has taught in Pepperdine University's MS in Technology Management program since 1989.     

Discovering quiescent meanings in technologies: exploring the design management practices that support the development of Technology Epiphanies

In contemporary business and academia, design has been increasingly viewed as an important strategic asset such that several scholars and executives have recently investigated the links among design, innovation and competitive advantage. Indeed, recent and emerging literature streams are exploring the potential contribution design can provide in valorising and differently adopting new or existing technologies [Dell’Era, Marchesi, and Verganti 2010. “Mastering Technologies in Design-Driven Innovation – How Two Italian Companies Made Design a Central Part of their Innovation Process.” Research Technology Management 53 (2): 12–23 Buganza et al. 2015. “Unveiling the Potentialities Provided by New Technologies: A Process to Pursue Technology Epiphanies in the Smartphone App Industry.” Creativity and Innovation Management 24 (3): 391–414]. This paper aims to investigate the design managerial practices able to support Technology Epiphanies, which are defined as the discovery of quiescent meanings in new or existing technologies [Verganti 2009. Design-Driven Innovation. Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean. Boston: Harvard Business Press]. The paper relies on four in-depth case studies developed by both primary and secondary sources: Nintendo, Kartell, Technogym and KUKA Robotics. The paper identifies three design management practices that can guide managers in the development of Technology Epiphanies: interpreting technology as an enabling platform, building double-sided network and accessing new knowledge domains.     

Authorship,Collaboration, Topics,and Research Gaps in Environmental and Resource Economics 1991–2015

Environmental and Resource Economics is one of the premier journals in the field of environmental economics. It was established with an aspiration to focus more on applied and policy relevant research compared to other established journals, and to establish better channels of communication and collaboration between researchers from Europe and other parts of the world. We present a text based exploratory analysis of 1630 articles published in the Journal from 1991 to 2015 that suggests the Journal has been somewhat successful in meeting both these aims. Perhaps more importantly, it shows the Journal continues to progress toward these goals. The European authors are the largest contributors to the Journal, which is in contrast to other prominent journals (such as Journal of Environmental Economics and Management and Ecological Economics). And while most of the collaboration has occurred within this geographic region (e.g., European authors collaborated with other European authors more frequently), this trend appears to be changing as the proportion of articles written by international collaborators is gradually increasing. Topic analysis reveals that almost all of the articles could be grouped under applied and/or policy relevant topics, and almost two-thirds of the articles are empirical in nature, which suggest that the journal has been able to fulfil both of its commitments. We also investigate trends in research foci over the last 25 years and what kind of research gaps can be discerned.     

Optimal collusion-resistant mechanisms with verification

We present the first general positive result on the construction of collusion-resistant mechanisms, that is, mechanisms that guarantee dominant strategies even when agents can form arbitrary coalitions and exchange compensations (sometimes referred to as transferable utilities or side payments). This is a much stronger solution concept as compared to truthful or even group strategyproof mechanisms, and only impossibility results were known for this type of mechanisms in the “classical” model.We describe collusion-resistant mechanisms with verification that return optimal solutions for a wide class of mechanism design problems (which includes utilitarian ones as a special case). Note that every collusion-resistant mechanism without verification must have an unbounded approximation factor and, in general, optimal solutions cannot be obtained even if we content ourselves with truthful (“non-collusion-resistant”) mechanisms. All these results apply to problems that have been extensively studied in the algorithmic mechanism design literature like, for instance, task scheduling and inter-domain routing.     

SIZE-DISTRIBUTION OF EARNINGS AND HOUSEHOLD INCOMES IN SMALL SOCIALIST COUNTRIES

Part I: Availability and meaning of East European distributional statistics are discussed. Part II: Measures of inequality to be used in this study are examined: the Gini coefficient of concentration, though superior to some other single indicators, is found to be an unreliable comparative measure of inequality, and is therefore supplemented by a set of ratios of selected percentiles to the median. Part III: Inequality of full-time gross monthly earnings is measured for (almost) the whole civilian working population and for some subpopulations (selected industries, men, women) in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia through 1970, in Hungary through 1968: the observed inequality appears to be less than in small capitalist countries, in spite of the reversal of the socialist egalitarian trend in the 'sixties. The main factor of equalization of socialist earnings are small interoccupational and interregional differentials and a very flat age profile. Part IV: The socio-economic structure of households, the size of samples underlying the distributional statistics, and the composition of household “revenues” (wage and salary earnings, agricultural incomes, social security payments, relatively unimportant property incomes, as well as non-income cash flows) are examined. Inequality coefficients are estimated for per capita revenues of all households as well as subpopulations of households in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and some information is given on the distribution of household incomes in Yugoslavia. Part V: Limits of desirable equalization of earnings are discussed. With very narrowly dispersed short-term earnings, lifetime earnings tend to be rather unequally distributed because of the variation of earning years among occupations. With largely equalized primary incomes, per capita household incomes tend to be more unequally distributed, in spite of massive transfers, because of the varying ratio of earners to dependents within households. The need of income differentials as incentives to work, the probable trade-off between income equality and economic growth, and socialist distributive principles are outlined.     

Information,motivation, and control in decentralized planning: the case of discretionary managerial behavior

A simple piecewise-linear managerial incentive scheme is analyzed in a decision-making environment in which a manager is allowed some discretionary activity (effort). Initially, he must report to the planner a target that will be used subsequently to evaluate his performance. If managerial effort is chosen after the random production components are realized, this predicted target will be more realizable than one reported in the absence of such discretionary adjustment. The sensitivity of target and performance to the parameters of the incentive scheme and the manager's utility function is examined to study the planner's ability to both acquire information and motivate performance. J. Comp. Econ., Sept. 1979, 3(3), pp. 235–253. Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.     

The role of social and technical excludability for the success of impure public good and common pool agreements: The case of international fisheries

We argue that international fisheries are a prime example to study the incentive structure of forming impure public good and common pool agreements. We consider a fully integrated multiple zone model, in which zones are linked through density-dependent migration. The incentive to accede to Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) is related to multiple characteristics. Firstly, the relative patch sizes of the high seas, which is the internationally (publicly) accessible domain, compared to exclusive economic zones, which are state-owned (privately owned). This can be related to the degree of socially constructed excludability. Secondly, the intensity of fish migration between various zones, which can be related to the degree of technical excludability. Thirdly, the growth rate of the resource, which can be interpreted as the degree of rivalry, with a low (high) degree of rivalry approximating public good (common pool) features. We show that, generally, excludability reduces free-riding incentives but also the need for cooperation, a variant of the “paradox of cooperation”. Moreover, we show that the benefit-cost duality between public goods and common pool resources generally holds except for some extreme parameter values for which a low degree of rivalry fosters the success of cooperation. Finally, through a variation of the diffusion matrix, we can also analyze a closed as well as a sink-source system.     

Bridging the gap between technological possibilities and people:: Involving people in the early phases of technology development

Technology provides endless promising possibilities to support people's lives. In reality, it is not a matter of what is possible, but rather a matter of how and when technology will be integrated, accepted and adopted by people. However, conventionally within organizations the areas of technology development and market research are not closely related nor applied in the process of innovation and do not always share the same scope. In that sense there is a gap between the potential of technology and humankind's preferences.This paper discusses the current areas of technology development and market research in a business environment and proposes an integrated approach to bridge the gap between technology and people, in which people, rather than market sizes become central in the development of technology. In addition, it also describes how this approach of people-driven innovation is brought into practice through the development of early experience demonstrators. The core focus of this paper is on the processes and practices regarding innovation within an organization, rather than the adoption of innovation by users or the rate of the adoption of a marketed solution (Rogers, 1995 [E.M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, The Free Press, New York, 1995. [1]]).     

Marx's analysis of the falling rate of profit in the first version of Volume III of capital

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of the Hodgskin section of Theories of Surplus Value and the general law section of the first version of Volume III of Capital. It then considers Part III of Volume III, the evolution of Marx's thought and various interpretations of his theory in the light of this analysis. It is suggested that, as late as the 1870s, Marx had hoped to be able to provide a demonstration that the rate of profit must fall. The main conclusions are that (1) Marx's major attempt to show that the rate of profit must fall occurred in the general law section, (2) Part III does not contain a demonstration that the rate of profit must fall and (3) Marx was never able to demonstrate that the rate of profit must fall and he was aware of this.     

Clusters of firms in an inhomogeneous space: The high-tech industries in Milan

Why do industrial clusters occur in space? Is it because industries need to stay close together to interact or, conversely, because they concentrate in certain portions of space to exploit favourable conditions like public incentives, proximity to communication networks, to big population concentrations or to reduce transport costs? This is a fundamental question and the attempt to answer to it using empirical data is a challenging statistical task. In economic geography scientists refer to this dichotomy using the two categories of spatial interaction and spatial reaction to common factors. In economics we can refer to a distinction between exogenous causes and endogenous effects. In spatial econometrics and statistics we use the terms of spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity. A series of recent papers introduced explorative methods to analyse the spatial patterns of firms using micro data and characterizing each firm by its spatial coordinates. In such a setting a spatial distribution of firms is seen as a point pattern and an industrial cluster as the phenomenon of extra-concentration of one industry with respect to the concentration of a benchmarking spatial distribution. Often the benchmarking distribution is that of the whole economy on the ground that exogenous factors affect in the same way all branches. Using such an approach a positive (or negative) spatial dependence between firms is detected when the pattern of a specific sector is more aggregated (or more dispersed) than the one of the whole economy. In this paper we suggest a parametric approach to the analysis of spatial heterogeneity, based on the so-called inhomogeneous K-function (Baddeley et al., 2000). We present an empirical application of the method to the spatial distribution of high-tech industries in Milan (Italy) in 2001. We consider the economic space to be non homogenous, we estimate the pattern of inhomogeneity and we use it to separate spatial heterogeneity from spatial dependence.     

Employer payroll taxes and money wage behaviour

In the past ten years tax incidence theory has made a number of strides. Terminology has become standardized, assumptions have been made explicit, and a two sector, two factor, I static general equilibrium model to study incidence questions has been developed and elaborated. Rather than review these developments in any detail, it is sufficient here to note a sampling of these writings, namely the works of MUSGRAVE (1959, Ch. 10), HARBERGER (1962), MIESZKOWSKI (1967), MCLURE (1971) and MEISZKOWSKI'S (1969) summary of this litera-ture. ^{1 1} The models under consideration are essentially short run in nature. For present purposes the works of KRZYZANIAK (1968, 1970) on long run incidence are not being considered. View all notes

A central theme in this literature has been to emphasize the importance of relative price changes in the determination of tax incidence. At the same time it plays down the importance of the direction of shifting (forward or backward) which had been a prominent feature of earlier partial equilibrium incidence analysis. One purpose of the present paper is to argue that in actual empirical situations it is necessary to consider the behaviour of absolute prices in determining the incidence of a specific tax, the employer payroll tax.

There are four parts to the paper. Part I reviews the general equilibrium model and its conclusions on payroll tax incidence. The implications of forward shifting, backward shifting and payment of payroll taxes by employers are discussed in Part II. Results of a test for back-ward shifting of the tax in US manufacturing are reported in Part III. Part IV contains conclusions.

Two conclusions emerge from the analysis. (I) In the general equilibrium models under consideration the employer payroll tax is borne by labour. However, care must be taken in applying this conclusion to a real world situation where transfer payments are a component of family income. (2) Empirical tests in US manufacturing do not support the idea that the I employer tax is shifted totally backward onto money wages.     

On novelty and economics: Schumpeter’s paradox

Is novelty as such an intra or extra-economic phenomenon? Must we, necessarily, treat novelty uniquely as something that, from outside of an economic system, has an influence on it and on its evolution? Is it not a paradox to say that something that has no economic meaning is able to explain economic change? If so, is this paradox present in the Schumpeterian view on development? In this paper, we present what will be called the Schumpeter paradox: denoting nominally ‘novelty’ and ‘creator personality’ as its source, and ‘norm change’ as an analytical tool, is insufficient to separate different fields such as development and growth, if previously (and as a necessary condition) one does not develop a theoretical framework that has a natural place for the elements of ‘novelty’ and ‘creator personality’ that can support such a difference. Nobody should pretend that the study of economic development processes is straightforward. There are good grounds for believing that the innovation ‘black box’ will remain partially closed to economic analysis. However, this does not mean that nothing substantial may be said about novelty and economic development. How to tackle with this topic (and so, with the above-mentioned paradox) will require a change of perspective: a heuristic task should be undertaken. The ‘action plan approach’ here proposed would provide a coherent analytical framework to tackle with this kind of paradox.     

Noncooperative foundations of stable sets in voting games

This paper investigates optimal play in coordination games in which cognition plays an important role. In our game logically omniscient players would be able to identify a distinct coordination opportunity from other obvious facts. Real players may be unable to make the required inference. Our main experimental results are that in a coordination task with a cognitive component (1) players play differently when playing against themselves rather than against another player, and (2) given the opportunity, players signal cognition by choosing the coordination task over an outside option, a phenomenon which we refer to as cognitive forward induction.     

Infrastructures, incentives, and institutions: Fostering distributed knowledge bases for the learning society

While much attention has been devoted to information and communication technologies, a more fundamental change at the start of the new millennium is the increasing importance of innovation for economic prosperity and the emergence of a learning society. The analysis in this paper shows that innovation should be understood as a broad social and economic activity: it should transcend any specific technology, even if revolutionary, and should be tied to attitudes and behaviors oriented towards the exploitation of change by adding value.We build on the idea of inclusive learning, which entails a process of shared prosperity across the globe following local specific conditions, and argue that it is crucial to understand the features of knowledge-induced growth in rich countries, as well as the challenges and opportunities for late-industrialized and less-developed countries. To achieve these objectives, we emphasize the relative importance of infrastructures and incentives, but considering the increasingly important role of institutions towards the development of social capital. This is because learning societies will increasingly rely on “distributed knowledge bases” as a systematically coherent set of knowledge maintained across an economically and/or socially integrated set of agents and institutions.This broad concept has motivated the work behind the present paper, which builds on material presented at the 5th International Conference on Technology Policy and Innovation (ICTPI), which was held in Delft, The Netherlands, in June of 2001. Under the broad designation of “critical infrastructures,” the Conference brought together a range of experts to discuss technology, policy and management in a context much influenced by the dynamics of the process of knowledge accumulation, which drives learning societies. Thus, this special issue includes a set of extended contributions to the Delft conference, and the aim of this introductory paper is to set the stage for these contributions, with an original contribution on possible views on the role critical infrastructures play to foster innovation in the learning society.     

Comparing technological hype cycles: Towards a theory

The notion of ‘hype’ is widely used and represents a tempting way to characterize developments in technological fields. The term appears in business as well as in academic domains. Consultancy firms offer technological hype cycle models to determine the state of development of technological fields in order to facilitate strategic investment decisions. In Science, Technology and Innovation Studies the concept of hype is considered in studies on the dynamics of expectations in innovation processes, which focuses on the performative force of expectations. What is still lacking is a theory of hype patterns that is able to explain the different shapes of hype cycles in different contexts. In this paper we take a first step towards closing this gap by studying and comparing the results of case studies on three hypes in three different empirical domains: voice over internet protocol (VoIP), gene therapy and high-temperature superconductivity. The cases differ in terms of the type of technology and the characteristics of the application environment. We conclude that hype patterns indeed vary a lot, and that the interplay of expectations at different levels affects the ability of a field to cope with hype and disappointment.     

Social assessment of technology and some of its international aspects

Search for some means of social management of technology has become a major concern for science and technology policy in recent years. Social Assessment of Technology (SAT) is considered as a potentially important instrument of this new orientation of policy. The concept of social assessment of technology leads to a reappraisal of the role of science and technology in a contemporary society, both with regard to policy, and to final objectives. It is a new approach to a better informed decision-making. Though it is of interest to all segments of the policy-making process, one would expect that social assessment of technology should be closely linked to technology policy. However, from the institutional point of view, technology has no place of its own. The term “technology” was only recently added to that of science in the relevant national government agencies. This is a purely formal link. To arrive at an operational outline of technology policy, a much deeper understanding of technology and the innovative process in general is still necessary.The lack of an appropriate institutional “niche” makes it particularly difficult to envisage technology assessment studies at an international level. The work accomplished by OECD is of interest, since it is the first experience of its kind. Theoretical and factual investigations had led to the publication of a comprehensive analysis, Society and the Assessment of Technology, and a report on Methodological Guidelines for Social Assessment of Technology. This was followed by an attempt to test the social assessment approach in applying it to real problems of interested member countries. International cooperation in the field of social assessment of technology is hampered by a number of major difficulties such as changing objectives of national policy, secrecy, race for a competitive advantage, insufficient diffusion and understanding of the concept itself, and the unwillingness or inability of decision-makers to consider middle- and long-term policies.