Designing the future? Technology,values and choice

There is a widespread recognition of the desirability of broadening the scope of technology education with the objective of a form of technological literacy which would embrace social relations as well as technique. In 1990, Technology was introduced as a compulsory element of general education in England and Wales. Initially the curriculum gave equal weight both to the context as well as the content of technological activity, but subsequent revisions point the way back to an emphasis on technique and a narrower view of the role of the designer. In some respects, this simplifies the task of the technology teacher, and it might also be said to reflect the everyday realities of much technological activity. It is, however, an essentially conservative approach which tends to reinforce and legitimise attitudes which place a high value on technical performance while consigning the purposes and outcomes of technological activity to the shadows. It is argued that, for the sake of the future, it is essential that values in design and technology are brought up to the light. Technology teachers should take some responsibility for this, but cannot be expected to shoulder the whole burden.     

Who Invented the Lerner Index? Luigi Amoroso, the Dominant Firm Model, and the Measurement of Market Power

The invention of the price/cost margin (P-MC)/P as an index of market power is usually credited to Lerner (Rev Econ Stud 1(3):157?C175, 1934). Landes and Posner (Harv Law Rev 94(5):937?C996, 1981) is similarly often considered the main reference for the generalized version of the index in the case of a dominant firm that shares the market with price-taking rivals. From the viewpoint of the history of industrial economics both claims are incorrect. It was not Lerner who invented the price/cost margin index and the generalized version was fully derived before WWII. In both cases, priority should be given to Luigi Amoroso, the leading Italian mathematical economist in the interwar decades. In the latter case the names of Heinrich von Stackelberg and George Stigler also deserve credit.     

Pesticide residues and trade,the apple of discord?

In this paper we study the impact of the regulations on Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) of pesticides on the trade of apples and pears and related processed products with the aim of understanding how their similarity (or dissimilarity) affect trade. Most studies investigate the impact of sanitary regulations introducing directly in the analysis the MRL put in force in the importing country. They introduce in the analysis the level of the regulation in the importing country without taking into account the rule in force in the exporting country. Rather than focusing on a particular pesticide we take into account the entire list of substances set out by the various regulations. We then build a similarity index and introduce it into a gravity equation to assess the impact of the differences in MRL of pesticides on trade. Results suggest that the differences between regulations matter and may, in some case, hinder trade.     

Battle on the Wrong Field? Entrant Type,Dominant Designs,and Technology Exit

Research summary : Startups often compete with diversifying entrants in the technology race to define dominant designs, which can be platform technology‐based or non‐platform technology‐based. However, little research has examined the relative risk of technological exits for startups vs. diversifying entrants in such “dominance battles.” We develop a contingency framework that links a firm's technology exit to its pre‐entry experience and the characteristics of the dominance battle. With a sample of 134 technologies involved in 31 dominance battles in the information technology industry from 1979 to 2007, we show that technologies of startups were more likely than those of diversifying entrants to exit from platform technology‐based dominance battles; however, this relationship did not exist in non‐platform technology‐based dominance battles, or after the emergence of dominant designs. Managerial summary : How can a startup that tries to create a dominant design strategize to survive the fierce technology race? This study demonstrates that choosing the right battlefield is of paramount importance. Two aspects of a battlefield are shown as relevant: the type of technology and the stage of industrial evolution. Our results show that technologies sponsored by startups tend to have higher exit rates than those sponsored by diversifying entrants in dominance battles characterized by platform technologies, but this penalty is not evident in dominance battles characterized by non‐platform technologies or after the emergence of dominant designs. Furthermore, our study suggests that lack of organizational legitimacy, complementary assets, and integrative capabilities may explain why startups have a higher risk of technology exit than diversifying entrants. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shareholder value,stakeholder management,and social issues: what's the bottom line?

We test the relationship between shareholder value, stakeholder management, and social issue participation. Building better relations with primary stakeholders like employees, customers, suppliers, and communities could lead to increased shareholder wealth by helping firms develop intangible, valuable assets which can be sources of competitive advantage. On the other hand, using corporate resources for social issues not related to primary stakeholders may not create value for shareholders. We test these propositions with data from S&P 500 firms and find evidence that stakeholder management leads to improved shareholder value, while social issue participation is negatively associated with shareholder value. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does imitation reduce the liability of foreignness? Linking distance,isomorphism, and performance

Research summary : Research demonstrates that foreign firms from institutionally distant countries imitate the practices of domestic firms (i.e., adopt an isomorphism strategy). The conjecture has been that pursuing such a strategy can help foreign firms counteract the deleterious performance consequences associated with institutional distance; yet there is scant evidence of such. This study treats isomorphism as an endogenously selected strategy influenced by institutional distance to examine its performance consequences. Using a dataset of 80 foreign banks from 25 countries operating in the United States, we find that foreign firms from institutionally distant home countries benefit initially from selecting an isomorphism strategy. However, the benefits diminish with experience. Managerial summary : Multinational companies experience great difficulty in managing institutional distance, and research suggests that one way to overcome distance‐related constraints is to imitate the strategies of local companies. Unfortunately, we do not know enough about the performance‐related consequences of engaging in such imitative behavior. This study examines whether imitating local firms improves performance for multinational companies from institutionally distant markets. We find that imitation improves a firm's performance at first; however, with experience those same strategies result in performance decrements. Managers of multinationals should therefore be careful not to get locked into imitative strategies that provide performance benefits upon entry, but that fail to provide benefits over time. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Food,energy and environment: Is bioenergy the missing link?

We study price linkages between the food, energy and bioenergy markets. A vertically integrated multi-input, multi-output market model allows us to derive testable hypothesis, which we test by applying time-series analytical mechanisms to nine major traded food commodity prices along with one weighted average world crude oil price. The data consists of 939 weekly observations from January 1993 to December 2010. The empirical findings confirm the theoretical hypothesis that the prices for crude oil and food commodities are interdependent: a USD 1/barrel increase in oil prices and food commodity prices increase by between USD 0.09/tonne and USD 1.65/tonne.     

Economics at the Antitrust Division 2016–2017: Healthcare,Nuclear Waste,and Agriculture

This year the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice litigated an unprecedented number of cases. Two mergers, Anthem with Cigna and Aetna with Humana, threatened to dramatically alter the face of commercial health insurance. The Anthem case raised questions of how to evaluate a claim that competition costs billions annually in potential medical cost savings. The Aetna case raised questions of how commercial insurers compete against the public programs—specifically Medicare. The Division also litigated numerous other civil matters including a proposed merger of nuclear waste disposal facilities. In that case, economists had to explore the scope and bounds of competition within a variety of regulatory regimes. And, in a merger of two new technologies that improve the efficiency of planting seeds, the emerging nature of the market led to interesting variations in the analysis. This overview of the economic issues in these particular cases is intended to provide insights into the challenges of enforcing antitrust law and the way in which economic analysis in particular is used to address those challenges.     

Economics at the FCC, 2017–2018: Internet Freedom,International Broadband Pricing Comparisons,and a New Office of Economics and Analytics

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) current strategic plan lists four priority goals: closing the digital divide; promoting innovation; protecting consumers and public safety; and reforming the FCC’s processes. Economists at the FCC contribute toward the realization of each of these goals, through analysis of the nature and significance of the underlying problems that regulations are intended to solve, as well as assessments of alternative solutions. Three major FCC initiatives demonstrate the role that economic analysis played in Commission decisions in 2017–2018: the Restoring Internet Freedom Order; the new hedonic pricing model that was used in the International Broadband Data Report; and the order that reorganized Commission economists into the Office of Economics and Analytics.     

Perfect timing? Dominant category,dominant design,and the window of opportunity for firm entry

The optimal time to enter emerging industries is a key concern in strategy, yet scholars struggle to create a theoretical foundation that can integrate conflicting empirical findings. We incorporate categorical dynamics to industry life cycle theory to enhance existing entry timing theories. We introduce the concept of a dominant category—the conceptual schema that most stakeholders adhere to when referring to products that address similar needs and compete for the same market space—linking it to the dominant technological design and entry‐timing advantages. In particular, we propose the existence of a window of opportunity for firm entry that starts with the emergence of the dominant category and ends with the emergence of the dominant design. © 2013 The Authors. Strategic Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

“Open access:” the ideal and the real

“Open access” would allow ISPs to use a cable operator's broadband connection under regulated terms and conditions. Advocates stress the desirability of an “end-to-end” architecture for the Internet and the danger that cable operators will use their control over the last mile to limit consumer choice and stifle innovation. Opponents contend that wholesale price controls and other regulatory burdens under what they term “forced access” would in fact slow down the deployment of broadband, stifle innovation and harm consumers. The fears of “open access” advocates seem largely speculative at this point. Evidence from related policies also favors the opponents. “Closed” cable systems are beating their “open” DSL competitors in the market place; analogous regulation of cable TV did not serve consumers well; and forced “unbundling” of local service has been controversial and largely ineffective. In addition, relevant technology stocks declined in price with political and legal victories for “open access” and increased when it suffered setbacks.     

People,institutions, and technology: A personal view of the role of foundations in international agricultural research and development 1960–2010

In the 1940 and 1950s, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations initiated overseas rural and agricultural development activities in a number of countries in Asia and Latin America. They began with country programs. These programs often involved creating new institutions in the recipient countries, and while the perspective was long term – as long as it took to achieve program goals – the foundations also explicitly sought to work themselves out of a job and turn over responsibility to nationals. By 1960 the two foundations had moved beyond national assistance programs to invent a new model, the international agricultural research center, designed to improve the lives of poor rural people by increasing the productivity of developing world agriculture. Some of the national programs were morphed into international centers. The international agricultural research centers proved attractive to other donors and by the 1970s international agricultural research had become institutionalized in the form of the CGIAR and its associate centers. The 1960s India agricultural program of the Rockefeller Foundation comprised a team of about a dozen American scientists working in India assisting Indian scientists to invent new approaches to agricultural technology development. At the same time and also in India, the Ford Foundation pioneered the integrated rural development model. By the mid-1970s integrated rural development projects were the approach of choice for many donors. In the 1980s the Ford Foundation moved away from agriculture concentrating on broader social issues; the Government of India and Rockefeller Foundation decided Foundation scientists had, indeed, worked themselves out of their jobs and Rockefeller’s India program was effectively closed down, although by then the international agricultural research centers, including ICRISAT in India, had attained a degree of maturity and stability. The Rockefeller Foundation invented another new model for agricultural research in the 1990s – the international rice biotechnology network, in which leading scientists from Asian countries, Western countries and the international centers worked together within a framework managed by Rockefeller scientists. In 2006, the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation entered the global agricultural scene in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation to establish AGRA, yet another new model. By 2010 the Gates Foundation was annually spending about 10 times     

Are Investors the Bad Guys? Tenure and Neighborhood Stability in Chelsea,Massachusetts

In this article, we examine the role of investors and occupant‐owners in an urban context during the recent housing crisis. We focus on Chelsea, Massachusetts, because it is a dense city, dominated by multifamily housing structures with high rates of foreclosure for which we have particularly good data. We distinguish between occupant‐owners and investors using local data, and we find that many investors are misclassified as occupant‐owners in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. Then, employing a competing risks framework to study ownerships during the period 1998 through mid‐2010, we find that local investors, who tend to invest more in relation to purchase prices and sell more quickly, experienced approximately 1.8 times the mortgage foreclosure risk of occupant‐owners, conditional on financing. Nonlocal investors have no statistically significant difference in foreclosure risk from occupant‐owners. Nonetheless, those owners with subprime purchase mortgages (most of whom are occupant‐owners) faced the highest foreclosure risk when house prices fell.     

Students’ attitudes toward technology: exploring the relationship among affective,cognitive and behavioral components of the attitude construct

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - When studying attitudes toward technology education, the affective attitudinal component has primarily been the focus. This study focuses...     

Robotics and STEM learning: students’ achievements in assignments according to the P3 Task Taxonomy—practice,problem solving,and projects

This study presents the case of development and evaluation of a STEM-oriented 30-h robotics course for junior high school students (n = 32). Class activities were designed according to the P3 Task Taxonomy, which included: (1) practice—basic closed-ended tasks and exercises; (2) problem solving—small-scale open-ended assignments in which the learner can choose the solution method or arrive at different answers; and (3) project-based learning—open-ended challenging tasks. The research aimed at exploring students’ working patterns, achievements in learning the course, and the impact of this experience on students’ motivation to learn STEM subjects. Evaluation tools included a final exam on factual, procedural and conceptual knowledge in the STEM subject learned in the course, class observations, interviews with the students, and administrating an attitude questionnaire before and after the course. Since the experimental class was quite heterogenic in regard to students’ prior learning achievements and motivation to learn, some of the students completed just the basic exercises, others coped well with the problem-solving tasks, and only a few took it upon themselves to carry out a complex project. However, all students showed high motivation to learn robotics and STEM subjects. In summary, robotics provides a very rich and attractive learning environment for STEM education. Yet, the realization of this potential depends largely on careful design of the course methodology and especially the students’ assignments in the class. One should recognize that often only some students are capable of learning a new subject on their own through project work, and these students also need to gain additional knowledge and skills before dealing with complex projects.     

“High-Tech” Antitrust: Incoherent,Misguided, Obsolete,or None of the Above? Comments on Crandall-Jackson and Wright

That prominent antitrust cases have been in the “high-tech” arena is not surprising, since high-tech industries are often susceptible to the scale economies that lead to highly concentrated or monopoly markets. Crandall and Jackson’s observations on the IBM case are on point. Regarding AT&T, the salient observation is that recent changes in legal doctrine may make it impossible to bring antitrust cases in regulated industries. The problem with the Microsoft case was not that it was right or wrong, but that it was fundamentally incoherent. Wright’s critique of the Federal Trade Commission’s case against Intel is problematic because buyers in exclusion cases tend to be better off, not victims as they would be under collusion or anticompetitive mergers. As these observations apply more generally to cases in sectors that are not associated with high-tech, I offer a few thoughts on some antitrust issues that are particular to high-tech sectors, specifically how the prospect of innovation could affect market definition in merger cases and, more broadly, whether dynamic efficiencies reduce the need for antitrust enforcement.     

PERSPECTIVE: first,fast, and on time: the path to success. or is it?

To be competitive, and become the industry leader, the firm needs to be fast, first, and on time, or so the story goes. Fast development cycle times, first to market, and schedule predictability are the three basic principles of new product development performance, but what does the evidence actually show? A review of current research, schedule performance data, and cycle time data shows that following these principles does not necessarily lead to success. Recent studies indicate that being first to market is not necessarily any better than being second, third, or even fifth. Several leading companies in the fast cycle time movement are rethinking their first-to-market strategy, and some are deliberately lengthening their cycle times. Finally, the correlation between schedule accuracy and business results is practically nonexistent in the product lines reviewed for this article. The evidence found while researching this article has led the authors to recast these three traditional principles into three new market-focused guiding principles: effective market introduction timing, first to mindshare, and managed responsiveness. To provide direction in applying these three principles, three types of market windows are defined: imposed, controllable, and emergent. How one approaches each of the three guiding principles is driven by which type of market window the organization is operating within, and other business characteristics, such as market position and the ability to differentiate.     

Is Timing Everything? Race,Homeownership and Net Worth in the Tumultuous 2000s

We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate how net worth was affected among low‐ and moderate‐income households who became first‐time homebuyers at different points during the volatile 2000s. We address selection using propensity score matching and estimating difference‐in‐difference models, and use quantile regressions to account for the skew in net worth outcomes. Results highlight the significance of race in the relationship between first‐time home buying and net worth during the decade. Although timing was critical to the short‐term trajectory of net worth for whites, total net worth declines for black first‐time homebuyers regardless of economic climate. The most dramatic differences between black and white new homebuyers is their neighborhood locations, with blacks purchasing in predominantly black neighborhoods with lower housing prices and price appreciation, and lower and declining rates of homeownership.