Problems of R&D manpower in India

Abstract
Manpower Planning is important in R&D organizations. If one examines the budget of a research institute in any part of the world, one would find that 60–70% of the expenditure is incurred on staff salaries and benefits. Of course, manpower planning is beset with problems. This paper deals with: (i) lack of literature; (ii) scientific manpower statistics; (iii) recruitment; (iv) unemployment of S&T personnel; (v) brain drain; (vi) internal brain drain; and (vii) suggestions.     

From citadels to clusters: the evolution of regional innovation policies in Australia

In Australia, the federal (central) and State (regional) governments share constitutional responsibility for aspects of science and innovation policy. In practice, the federal government has tended to overshadow the States both in funding and policy for research and innovation. It can be argued that we are now seeing the strong rebirth of regionalism (at least at the State level) as far as government support for science, technology and knowledge-based industries is concerned. The paper traces the growth of regional innovation policies through examples of initiatives from South Australia and other regions and examines the respective contributions of the State and federal governments. The character of State government support has evolved over the last 15 years, from sponsoring grand 'technology citadels' to today's strategies that take a more bottom-up approach to building intense innovation environments, local clusters and knowledge hubs. Some of these trends reflect the influence of the global knowledge economy on regional industries, while others (notably the relative decline of the federal government as an R&D performer) are peculiarities of the Australian innovation system. The outcome is a significant evolution in Australia's innovation system, one which parallels responses to globalisation in other countries and suggests a different – but not diminished – role for public sector innovation policy.     

The integrative domain of foresight and competitive intelligence and its impact on R&D management

R&D takes years to come to fruition, thus choosing R&D programs should be set in the context of the environment that will exist at the time that research is completed. Foresight and competitive intelligence are two fields that seek to address future oriented environmental scanning. The paper looks at what the domains of foresight and competitive intelligence entail and in particular how competitive technical intelligence can work to integrate and enable competitive agility in foresight positioning. Focus is put on reviewing literature that addresses how foresight impacts R&D project selection. A review is made on foresight programs from around the world based on a recently completed study on Canada's foresight capacity. The authors conclude that agile organizations need to be adaptive and well prepared for tomorrow's challenges and so by integrating competitive technical intelligence, (typically oriented to business needs) with strategic technology foresight, (typically designed to address government priorities for technology investments and innovation policy issues), enterprises will be best positioned to address uncertainties in the technology cycle.     

Evidence from Patents and Patent Citations on the Impact of NASA and Other Federal Labs on Commercial Innovation

Federal lab commercialization is explored: (1) by analyzing US government patents and (2) in a qualitative analysis of one NASA lab's patents. Tests apply to three distinct sets of patents, 1963–94: NASA, all other US government, and a random sample of all US inventors' patents. The federal patenting rate plummeted in the 1970s. Consistent with increasing commercialization, both NASA's and other federal agencies' rates recovered in the 1980s. The case study finds citations to be a valid but noisy measure of technology spillovers. Excluding 'spurious' cites, two-thirds of cites to patents of NASA-Lewis' Electro-Physics Branch were evaluated as involving spillovers.     

Valuing ARM Rate Caps: Implications of 1970–84 Interest Rate Behavior

This paper computes how coupon rates on hypothetical default-free 1- 3- and 5-year adjustable rate mortgages with various caps and teaser rates issued during the 1970–76 period would have had to be set in order for the ARMs to have earned the market rate of return over a 7 1/2-year holding period. The 1970–84 period includes both a relatively stable interest rate experience (1970–77) and a "worse case" sharply rising rate environment (1977–84). Thus the calculations include the entire gamut of margins that lenders might need to charge for various caps in order to earn the market rate of return. What margins lenders should be charging at any point in time depends on the relative likelihood of future interest rate paths, e.g., the 1970–77 pattern versus the 1977–84 pattern. More formally, the appropriate charge depends on the slope of the yield curve and the perceived volatility of interest rates.     

Strategic Project Leadership ® Toward a strategic approach to project management

Strategic Project Leadership ^® (SPL) is a new approach to project management that is focusing projects on creating competitive advantage and winning in the marketplace. This approach is particularly relevant to strategic projects that are initiated to create the company's future, including almost all R&D projects. In the traditional approach, project managers and teams were typically focused on getting the job done, and meeting time and budget goals. SPL , provides a modern view. It suggests that projects are initiated for business reasons, and that just 'getting the job done' is not enough. This paper presents a mindset, a framework, and a practical, step-by-step approach on how to connect project management to business results and how to turn projects into powerful competitive weapons. The paper is based on extensive case research, of which we present six cases – three successes and three disappointments – to demonstrate the value of the SPL approach to project management.¹     

The Effect of Management Buyouts on Firm–level Technical Inefficiency: Evidence from a Panel of UK Machinery and Equipment Manufacturers

The longer–term technical efficiency effects of management buyouts (MBOs) are evaluated using a stochastic production frontier approach on a panel of UK manufacturing firms. The results, based on the period 1986–1997, indicate that firms with the MBO governance structure: (1) have higher efficiency in the two years before the transaction but not prior to that; (2) have efficiency 7%, 7.5%, 4%, and 7% higher in each of the first four years post–buyout; (3) do not have superior efficiency beyond the fifth year post–buyout. This is consistent with MBOs creating managerial incentives that improve firm–level performance.     

The multidivisional firm and control over the work process

This paper investigates the role of M-form organisation in enabling management in large UK companies to regain control over the work process subsequent to the growth of strong shopfloor trade union organisation in the 1950s and 1960s. A dynamic model is proposed in which the degree of control over the work process shifts between managers and workers. Logit analysis is employed to test two specific propositions: (i) that management in M-forms will seek to relocate bargaining at a level where unions are organisationally weak — the division, (ii) that unions will subsequently respond by creating inter-plant organisations. Both propositions receive empirical support.     

The impact of government purchases on market performance in Australia

This paper discusses the role which federal, state and local governments can play as large buyers in influencing the behavior of sellers in markets. While the available data make it impossible to draw unambiguous conclusions, the evidence is consistent with the possibility that theAustralian Commonwealth (federal) Government has used its market position as a large buyer to encourage competitive behavior, especially in highly concentrated industries. The local preference buying policies of state and local governments, however, may have augmented the effects of market power. The results suggest strongly that omission of variables representing the buying side of markets will lead to misspecification of structure-performance models, and indicate that government purchases could at appropriate times be used in addition to antitrust action, in order to improve market performance.     

Evaluating Employer Sanctions: Farm Labor Contractor Experience

This article examines two decades of experience enforcing a federal employer sanctions law on farm labor contractors (FLCs) who knowingly hire illegal aliens. Enforcement experience indicates that employer sanctions laws have had little effect on the number of illegal aliens hired by FLCs; indeed, FLC activity has expanded and the proportion of illegal alien workers hired appears to have increased.     

Electricity: Changes and Issues

This paper surveys recent developments in therestructuring and deregulation of the electric utilityindustry. New federal and state legislation isreviewed together with commission actions designed to carry out restructuring. The Department of Energy's highly controversial attempt to measure the netbenefits of electricity deregulation is noted, alongwith the response of DOE's critics. Five major factorsthat will affect the success or failure ofrestructuring and deregulation are examined at length. These include: growing industry concentration, theincreased risk premium attached to the market trading of electricity, the transition costs that will beincurred, the organization and governance of thetransmission network, and the adequacy of consumer and environmental protection in the new setting.     

Computer Use and Productivity Growth in US Federal Government Agencies, 1987–92

We examine the impact of information technology (IT) on productivity in the public sector econometrically, using data from the BLS Federal Productivity Measurement Program and from Computer Intelligence Infocorp, and by interviewing some government officials. We estimate a production function for government services that includes IT capital as an input, and find a strong positive relationship across federal agencies between productivity growth and computer-intensity growth during the period 1987–92, controlling for growth in compensation and other outlays per employee, and in the number of employees. Our estimates are consistent with the hypothesis that there are 'excess returns' to IT capital.     

Contextual Innovation Management Using a Stage‐Gate Platform: The Case of Philips Shaving and Beauty

To improve its innovation process, Philips Shaving and Beauty (S&B) designed a blueprint for its innovation process. Although it has proved to be quite effective, it has experienced a lack of efficiency, in terms of frequent cost and time overruns, in the fuzzy front end of this process. We suggest a contextual innovation management approach to set up a stage‐gate‐based innovation process platform and thus improve the efficiency in the fuzzy front end, which means that, for different contexts, stage‐gate process variants will be designed from which unnecessary activities are removed and important activities are emphasized. The design is based on the identification of relevant contextual factors to develop variations of the common innovation process within Philips S&B. We distinguished different variants of the innovation processes within Philips S&B that can increase the efficiency in the fuzzy front end. Based on interviews within and outside Philips S&B, we identified problems and potential solutions with regard to efficiency in eight recently finished innovation processes. The results indicate that the most important contextual factors are the distinction between incremental and radical innovations, and between market and technology‐based innovations. We used these factors to design three variants on the basic platform of the stage‐gate process.     

Experience as a moderator of involvement and satisfaction on brand loyalty in a business-to-business setting 02-314R

This paper examines the relative influence of two key antecedents of brand loyalty—satisfaction and involvement and the moderating role of experience, using a sample of business buyers. The central argument of this paper is that the strength of the effect of these variables on attitudinal brand loyalty will vary with the level of customer experience with purchasing the service. Building on previous research which examined low-risk, customer product settings [Kim, J., Lim, J.S., & Bhargava, M. (1998). The role of affect in attitude formation: A classical conditioning approach. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 26 (2): pp. 143-152; Shiv, B., & Fedorikhin, A. (1999). Heart and mind in conflict: The interplay of affect and cognition in consumer decision-making. Journal of Consumer Research 26: 278], this study shows that for a high-risk setting, involvement with the service category will be more dominant in its influence on brand loyalty than satisfaction with the preferred brand. Furthermore, it was found that experience moderated the influence of involvement and satisfaction on attitudinal brand loyalty for a high-risk business-to-business service. This study provides new insights into the theory and practice of buyer behavior and business-to-business brands.     

Research and Development in Algeria

Since 1971, that is nine years after gaining its independence, Algeria has among some Third World countries formulated an ambitious Science and Technology (S&T) Policy. In the last few years, the relevant administrative structure has been completed by installing a centralised body at the highest level. Policy itself has changed very little, and remained in some aspects well behind developments in the structure. In this paper, the author intends to consider the evolution of both structure and policy of Algeria's research and development (R&D); and the extent of their coherence or harmony and their linkages with industry.
Even though structure and policy are the key factors affecting R&D effectiveness of a country, no significant success could be achieved without strengthening the relevant network allowing for the technical competence to be used effectively. Hence, the main theme of the paper concentrates on Algeria's need to review its R&D system to allow both structure and policy to be effective or cause relevant activities to be integrated within the production system, build better technological capabilities, and work for a more efficient industrial development.     

Passionate about designing

In the school based subject of design and technology (D&T) a fundamental element is designing and making functional products using critical and creative thinking whilst developing skills in the use of a variety of processes and materials. Teachers of the subject need to be more then just ‘enthusiastic’ about the processes involved if they are to develop enthusiasm in their pupils that will sustain them through the exciting but sometimes arduous and difficult processes required to achieve outcomes of which they and their teachers can be proud. The intention of this research project, using an initial sample of forty-nine students and a non-probability purposive sample of ten students studying to become D&T teachers was to tease out the factors which appear to enable some students to be passionate about creating a product to a given brief while others from similar backgrounds and expectations, given the same brief, and in the same learning situation, do not reach this level of enthusiasm. The data collection method used was an attitude scale and semi-structured interviews which were qualitatively analysed in order to identify factors involved, with the intention of informing and improving the way the authors teach their students, to design, and about design, with the additional aim of improving the students teaching of that activity once they become D&T teachers. Within the full paper results are discussed and tentative conclusions drawn.     

The Value of Liquidity

In this study, we examine the relationship between the liquidity of equity and its market value. We find that creating liquid equity claims on relatively illiquid property assets increases value by 12–22%. However, the fixed costs associated with creating these claims offset these liquidity gains for pools of assets below $100 million. We also estimate that the liquidity of individual properties adds 16% to their value relative to a notional nontradable property asset. Managers can enhance the liquidity of equity and, therefore, the benefits of securitization by increasing size, focus, and institutional ownership.     

Viewpoint: Can U.S. local soda taxes continue to spread?

Taxes to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) such as soda drinks have been endorsed by the World Health Organization and are now in place in France, Hungary, and Mexico, and scheduled for Portugal, South Africa, and Great Britain. Such taxes have so far been impossible to enact in the United States at the state or federal level, but since 2014 seven local jurisdictions have put them in place. Three necessary conditions for local political enactment emerge from this recent experience: Democratic Party dominance, external financial support for pro-tax advocates, and a political message appropriate to the process (public health for ballot issues; budget revenue for city council votes). Roughly 40 percent of Americans live within local jurisdictions where the Democratic Party dominates, so room exists for local SSB taxes to continue spreading.     

A quantitative assessment of innovation dynamics and R&D management in Japanese and West German telecommunications

Abstract
Among the industrial countries, different working divisions have evolved between manufacturing industry, governments and network operators, each being responsible for distinct parts of R&D in the telecommunications field. This paper provides a comparison of R&D in Japan and West Germany to several western industrial countries and highlights their diverse structures.
For this quantitative assessment various indicators for science and technology (S&T) have been compiled systematically. The new aspect of this paper is that indicators, only some of which are well established, can be interconnected provided that appropriate limitations are recognised. A comprehensive indicator system for research and development in telecommunications is currently not available as far as the author is aware. Consequently, subjective expert assessments are essential for the present indicator systems to overcome incomplete links between indicators, their poor adaptation to one another and data availability problems . The statistical sections here are therefore supplemented by a series of personal discussions in various countries.