A proposed mechanism for commercializing university technology

Numerous successful small companies have been created in recent years based on technology developed within universities. Often the companies are direct spin-offs from the university, involving faculty members who participated in the research and development programs which created the technology. These companies present interesting problems as well as opportunities for both the university and the faculty members involved. The paper discusses several aspects of these problems and suggests a mechanism to help the universities become more effective in encouraging such companies and sharing in the economic rewards, while maintaining their own integrity.     

The role of the research university in the spin-off of high-technology companies

A new type of university—industry relationship has developed in the 1980s that centers around the process of technology transfer from research universities to private firms. One expression of this new, closer relationship is the several university—industry research centers in microelectronics, of which the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) in Austin, Texas is the most noted example. The universities, private companies, and federal, state, and local governments all seem to benefit from the new university—industry relationships, but certain problems may accompany these benefits. The main hope-for result of industry—university collaboration is the rise of high-technology spin-off firms. The information technologies produced by the microelectronics industry are driving the Information Society.     

Preferred supplier programs for consulting services: An exploratory study of German client companies

Research has recently provided evidence that at least some companies have involved purchasing departments in buying professional services such as management consulting services. Some departments have established preferred supplier programs (PSPs) for consulting services, i.e., programs for consultancies with whom a company seeks to build up long-term relationships. While there are several studies that analyze such programs for suppliers of goods, research on business services is limited. Our aim is to present an exploratory analysis of PSPs for consulting services. Based on a survey of German client companies, we found that the most important reason for establishing PSPs is to reduce costs and transaction costs. Furthermore, our findings revealed that companies with and without PSPs for consulting services apply high significance to relational selection criteria. Moreover, in companies with PSPs, purchasing departments are more frequently involved in selecting consultancies compared to companies without PSPs. Finally, we found that companies with and without PSPs do not differ in their assessment of problems associated with the purchasing of consulting services. The study contributes to research on the purchasing of consulting services by indicating that the consultant–manager relationship should be extended to a service triad, involving purchasing professionals, managers, and consultants. Moreover, we contribute to research on PSPs by extending the focus to PSPs for knowledge-intensive service providers.     

Executive insights into HR practices and education

Over 1100 human resource (HR) executives responded to a survey concerning their perceptions of the HR issues their companies are facing, the role of HR in their organization, the skills HR employees should possess, and the substantive HR knowledge that graduates of HR programs should be able to demonstrate. Results suggest the most important issue facing HR executives today is managing change. Executives felt it was extremely important for HR professionals to be able to create a recruitment program in today's labor market. The results of this research provide several implications for the design and the delivery of HR educational programs.     

Critical success factors for mutual collaboration with suppliers in IT outsourcing industry: a case study of a top IT outsourcing company in Korea

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, information technology (IT) outsourcing companies face enduring demands to reduce cost while increasing productivity. This pressure leads many IT outsourcing companies to rely on outsourcing arrangements with IT personnel suppliers. In order to maximise efficiency, outsourcing companies have focused on fostering high-performing suppliers through improved collaboration and mutual relations. However, it is very difficult to advance to a long-term partnership using the existing outsourcing process because of insufficient collaboration between IT outsourcing companies and their suppliers. Based on collaboration perspective of supply chain management (SCM), this study identifies the critical success factors for collaborative strategic partnerships and presents an evaluation framework for assessing and managing suppliers. We have developed an organisational process model for Supplier relationship management (SRM)-based collaboration which includes some of the key constructs from the previous studies and interviews with the IT outsourcing industry people. In this study, we will identify four types of strategic suppliers and suggest approaches for improving collaborative relationship between an IT outsourcing company and its partner companies. In addition, to validate the feasibility of the proposed model, we applied it to a well-known Korean IT outsourcing company ‘A’.     

论现代大学形象的基本标志

进入新世纪以来，中国有许多大学提出了要打造世界一流大学的雄伟目标，并在学校形象塑造上不遗余力。但中国目前最紧迫的任务不是打造一、二所世界一流大学，更重要的是建设和拥有一大批现代大学，现代大学的形象塑造是一个系统工程，文章指出：一座现代大学必须努力确立一个极具创意的理念，构建一种能让名师辈出的机制，装备了先进的教学和科研设施，拥有优秀的在校生和杰出的校友，并最终成为国际文化和科技交流的中心，这些是一所现代大学良好形象体系必须具备的基本要素，如果中国有一大批大学能在自己形象的旗帜上清晰打上了这些标志性要素的烙印，也许，中国世界一流的现代大学离真正地诞生就不远了。     

Bridging the cultural divide: Trust formation in university–industry research collaborations in the US,Japan, and South Korea

Academia and industry increasingly work together, but this is not always an easy endeavor. In this article we investigate how relational mechanisms facilitate trust formation in university–industry research collaborations (UICs) in three countries and contribute to the understanding of international similarities and differences in UICs by considering institutional factors, specifically, the strength and maturity of UICs in each country. Analyzing survey data of 618 recent UICs in the US, Japan, and South Korea, we identify the activities of innovation champions as a critical trust building mechanism between firms and universities that complements initial trust formation through tie strength, partner reputation, and contractual safeguards. We find that partner reputation and champion behavior are more important for trust formation in South Korea than in the US and Japan, indicating that in ‘emerging UIC countries’ where most firms and universities have little collaboration experience, reputation and the leadership by innovation champions are more important for trust formation in UICs than in ‘advanced UIC countries’ with strong and mature UIC networks. From a public policy perspective, our findings suggest that networks between firms and universities should be generally strengthened and collaboration partners should be provided with effective contractual safeguards to enhance trust formation in UICs.     

日本高校物流教育目录

我国高校的物流教育还处于起步阶段,和日本相比,我们还有很多需要学习的地方。根据日本公开出版的物流教育目录和各高校的网上宣传资料,列出日本主要高校的物流教育目录,其中许多大学和学院都提供运输、物流系统和供应链管理方面的学位课程及进修课程,给我们提供了一些参考。     

Corporate giving: Targeting the likely donor

Recent years have seen a major change in corporate attitudes to giving. There are many accounts in the literature of a move away from a purely philanthropic motive for charity support, to an opportunity-based paradigm where companies seek some tangible benefits in exchange for their donations. This paper reports the findings of a detailed survey of corporate givers undertaken in the county of Devon. The aim of the research was to determine the primary motivations for giving among the business community and the criteria most commonly used to select charities for support. The results clearly indicate that the primary motivation for giving remains a purely philanthropic one. The majority of businesses presently do not look for any gain to accrue from their charitable support and therefore do not monitor the success of their relationships with the charity sector.     

The Academic Coverage of Business Ethics: Does Economics Measure Up?

A bstract Economics and business classes are closely related and, in most colleges and universities , included in the business core curriculum . Courses in ethics and the social responsibility of business, if not required, are increasingly recommended to business students. The authors argue that: (1) a discussion of ethical issues is lacking in economics core courses while core courses in management and marketing contain extensive coverage of the topic and (2) this topic should be integrated into the core courses of all business-related disciplines. In economics texts, problems of efficiency are seen as manageable and uncontroversial while problems of ethics and equity are seen as controversial and theoretically intractable. Using survey data from the top selling texts in the principles of economics , intermediate microeconomics , the principles of marketing, and the principles of management , the authors show the disparity in the presentation of ethical issues between the disciplines of business and economics.     

Effects of enterprise technology on supply chain collaboration: analysis of China-linked supply chain

Supply chain collaboration has received increasing attention from scholars and practitioners in recent years. However, our understanding of how enterprise information technology facilitates supply chain collaboration is still very limited, especially with regard to Chinese enterprise ownerships such as state-owned firms, joint-venture firms and local village-owned firms. This paper extends the theory established in enterprise information technology (IT) and supply chain collaboration literature and relates it with coordination in China-linked supply chain. Drawing upon an empirical study from 177 Chinese companies, we provide three major findings: (i) uncovered the importance of leveraging enterprise IT through supply chain collaboration; (ii) identified the relationship between enterprise ownership and enterprise technology use and supply chain collaboration in China-linked supply chain and (iii) illustrated effects of supply chain collaborative activities on operational and market performance.     

探讨我国大学衍生企业形成机制中大学的核心作用

文章通过大量国内外文献的整理,从大学机构、制度政策与社会环境三个方面,对影响国内外大学衍生企业形成的决定因素进行了分析与比较;并结合现实提出了结论：在我国独特的体制下,大学机构才是能够有效发展大学衍生企业的核心力量,而政府与社会资源作为协助,为大学提供政策保障与资源支持。     

不做昙花一现的英雄，很难很难

只有精心培育一批CEO候选人,企业才能在变革来临时从容不迫1994年,美国费尔菲尔德市,58岁的杰克·韦尔奇在整整一年的时间里痛苦不堪,晚上失眠,清晨早醒。他回忆说,选择继任者的工作不仅是我职业生涯中最为重要的一件事,而且是我面临的     

Location decisions of high-technology firms: A case study

Forty-six firms in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area were surveyed to determine factors affecting their location decisions. These firms spanned the range of “high-technology,” including biomedical, computers, integrated manufacturing, optics, remote sensing, and others. The firms were generally small, rapidly growing, new companies with a large percentage of their personnel devoted to research and development activities. The majority of the firms were founded in the area, rather than attracted from the outside; most did not consider sites outside of the Ann Arbor area when choosing their current site. According to the survey, the perceived strengths of the Ann Arbor area are its universities, quality of life, transportation networks, and work force. On the negative side, state and local taxes are seen as the area's greatest weaknesses. The area's lack of venture capital, certain local government regulations, and the perceived unavailability of certain support services and facilities are also troublesome. This set of positive and negative factors demonstrates how high-technology firms are different from traditional manufacturing firms in their location decisions. Consequently, any economic development strategies generated with the goal of developing high-technology firms in mind must be carefully tailored to the specific characteristics and needs of those firms.     

浅谈施工企业专业技术人才队伍建设新思路——以中国铁建系统内5家工程公司为例

施工企业具有体系庞杂、技术标准高、人员投入大、准入门槛高的特点。由于常年驻扎施工现场,加之人才培养、人才成长链条不健全,导致施工企业普遍人才流失严重,对企业长远发展造成了巨大的损失。人才建设是企业的百年大计,抓好人才建设不仅是施工企业的迫切需求,更是基建工程行业面临的重大课题。论文以中国铁建系统内5家工程公司为例,通过问卷调查活动,走访了1500名基层员工,获得了较为可靠的一手数据,通过数据分析可以发现诸多问题。结合调查研究情况,论文重点谈几点关于加强企业专业技术人才队伍建设的思考和体会。     

Managing human resource for competitive advantage: a study of companies in Singapore

We see two major streams of research in the strategic human resource management literature: (1) the link between strategy and human resource (HR) practices and (2) the link between HR practices and firm performance. There is a plethora of theoretical perspectives on the first link. Unfortunately, there is not much empirical work. The second link has seen a spate of empirical studies. However, most of them embrace the universal perspective and the role of strategy as a contingency has not been adequately addressed. This could potentially result in the underestimation of the impact of HR practices on organizational performance. This study addressed the above two weaknesses in previous research in the strategic HR management field. Using a sample of about 200 of the largest companies representing all major industries in Singapore, we found that organizational strategy affects HR practices. Moreover, findings suggest that the strategy-HR interaction accounts for more variation in firm performance than the main effect of HR. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

中国会计学博士点培养方案调查与评价

中国会计学博士教育日益面临来自就业市场和国际竞争的压力。文章通过考察国内会计学博士培养方案的状况,运用期刊论文发表数量对会计学博士点进行排名,旨在探索能够培养出更具研究能力的博士生培养方案。研究结果发现,培养出最多具有研究能力博士生的前三名博士点分别来自上海财经大学、中国人民大学和北京大学,从培养方案来看,排名靠前的博士点在公共课部分几乎都开设了计量经济学和微观经济学。结论认为,学习美国的研究范式和哲学思想可能并不完全适合中国,在培养方案的设计上还要更多考虑中国本土的问题。     

A global study of graduate management of technology programs

In the last decade, the field of technology management has attracted considerable attention from practitioners and scholars. The rapid emergence of powerful and innovative technologies in manufacturing, computing, telecommunications and the life sciences, such as biotechnology are making the strategic management of technology, a critical task in virtually all organizations. Reflecting this trend, several universities offer graduate programs in the management of technology (MOT). These programs have originated from various academic schools and disciplines (business, engineering, public policy) creating considerable diversity of focus, themes emphasized, courses, and student backgrounds. The rise of these programs, in part, reflects the growing need for managers and technologists who are able to understand, contribute to, and manage a wide variety of technology-based programs and organizations. This paper presents the results of a global study of graduate MOT programs. Over fifty (50) universities participated in the research reported in this paper. Findings related to research trends, curriculum developments, staffing, program implementation, and program emphases are examined. Several recommendations are advanced for universities considering initiating or further developing their MOT program. In addition, observations about the future direction of the field are made.     

高校财务信息系统外包风险与对策分析

为了适应高校信息化的不断发展,降低高校运行成本。目前许多高校会计电算化系统运行和维护都采用业务服务外包的方式运行。需要注意的是,高校财务信息系统运维外包战略在创造高收益的同时也不可避免地产生各种风险。本文将深入分析高校财务信息系统运维外包的概念、模式,进而剖析运维外包过程中的风险因素,并提出相应的策略和建议,为高校财务信息系统运维外包规避风险提供有效支持。