Networked research: European policy intervention in ICTs

We use social network analysis to evaluate ‘behavioural’ additionality aspects of public programmes supporting research and development (R&D). The paper appraises empirically the partnership and knowledge networks created around the R&D activities of the Information Society Priority of the Sixth Research Framework Programme of the European Community. These emergent, scale-free networks are found to play an important role in generating and, especially, in diffusing knowledge by attracting key industry actors and by strengthening overall network connectivity through public support. Public policy should try to facilitate the development of more European organisations that can be characterised as global network hubs, on the one hand, and to draw larger numbers of the most dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into these programmes, on the other, to avoid technological lock-ins and mitigate the resistance or network reorientation toward more productive research areas.     

System innovation through stepwise reconfiguration: the case of technological transitions in Dutch greenhouse horticulture (1930–1980)

Although transitions are usually perceived as technological substitution processes, the article shows that stepwise reconfiguration is more likely for supplier-dominated sectors. In this transition pattern, novelties are initially adopted as ‘modular innovation’ into existing systems and subsequently reconfigure the basic architecture through new combinations of old and new elements. Incumbent actors survive these transitions through interactions with suppliers of knowledge and innovations. Using Pavitt's innovation typology, we selected a case study from his supplier-dominated category: greenhouse farming. The article makes a techno-economic analysis of the overall transition pattern in Dutch greenhouse horticulture (1930–1980) and a socio-institutional analysis of the knowledge flows and networks. ‘Innovation cascades’ are identified as a particularly important mechanism in reconfiguration transitions.     

Responsible innovators: open networks on the way to sustainability transitions

This paper elucidates ways in which small high-technology companies through using open knowledge networks may contribute to sustainability transitions. The analysis focuses on young university spin-off companies as an important channel for bringing responsible innovations from university to market while it connects the micro-level with the meso-level of networks supporting socio-technical system changes. A conceptual reflection on responsible innovation, openness in knowledge networks and socio-technical systems’ transitions, is followed by an empirical research. Based on a hundred companies and four case studies, the results indicate that responsible innovation is one of the drivers of openness in knowledge networks. However, partner diversity in openness tends to have a negative effect on growth of the companies. Our preliminary evidence indicates that focus (product–market) and selectivity in the choice of partners connected to professional (venture) capital, market access, credibility and complementary assets are highly relevant when it comes to influencing change in socio-technical systems. A discussion of the implications of this study and suggestions for future research close the paper.     

中国ICT行业创新网络弹性——基于专利数据的实证研究

基于复杂网络弹性的视角,运用专利数据分析了中国ICT行业创新网络的弹性。结论如下:整体来看,中国ICT行业的创新网络具有无标度网络结构特征,少数网络主体间存在技术知识的非对称性依赖,局部网络锁定效应降低了创新网络弹性,网络关系瓦解导致创新网络弹性下降;随着行业创新主体的不断增加,创新网络的均衡性和异质性增强,创新网络弹性整体呈上升趋势,中国ICT行业的创新网络抵抗外部不确定性因素冲击的适应性增强。     

How perceived uncertainties influence transitions; the case of micro-CHP in the Netherlands

Transitions, or socio-technological transformations, towards sustainability can be considered as a long-term transformation at the level of society as a whole, which in turn consists of a sequence of short-term innovations. The direction and speed of transitions are largely determined by the collective innovation decisions of various actors. A crucial characteristic of transitions is that they involve many uncertainties. The uncertainties that actors perceive greatly influence their innovation decisions. Namely, perceived uncertainties might stimulate some actors to fulfill certain key activities that are crucial for achieving a transition, while blocking other actors from undertaking these activities. In order to understand and manage transitions, insight into the types of perceived uncertainties that dominate the innovation decisions is essential. Furthermore, we need to understand if perceived uncertainties block or stimulate transitions by analyzing how actors respond to perceived uncertainties.This article focuses on the first transition phase: the pre-development phase. An interesting case to study the role of uncertainties in this phase is the introduction of micro-CHP in the Netherlands. The main questions of this article are: Which types of perceived uncertainties are dominant for the innovation decisions related to micro-CHP in the Netherlands? How do actors react to the perceived uncertainties?The case results demonstrate that different types of uncertainties influence the innovation decisions of the involved actors. The most dominant sources of uncertainty are technological and political uncertainty. Furthermore, the case shows that responses to uncertainty vary largely between various types of actors. Perceived uncertainties seem to block some actors, but induce other actors in fulfilling key activities that are essential for achieving a transition. We discuss how these insights can be used for improving policy for stimulating transitions.     

Eco-Frontier and Place-Making: The Unexpected Transformation of a Sustainable Settlement Project in the Amazon

An important issue today is the compatibility of agricultural frontiers, which are driven by economic objectives, with conservationist views. In the Amazon, family farmers are concerned with this issue since they are at the same time actors of the agricultural frontier and considered as potential actors of the preservation of the forest. Through the study of a highly symbolic settlement project in the State of Pará, this paper focuses on the role that family farmers can play in meeting sustainability goals. The central argument which is developed in this paper is that this objective may be achieved when projects do not presuppose social and spatial relationships; rather, it advocates an approach which is attentive to place-making processes.     

制造业知识通道的建立及地方政府的作用——以国内乐器制造业为例

从知识流动来看,现阶段国内制造业存在两个问题:第一,行为主体如制造商与配套商、专业院校之间的知识流动通道尚未真正建立;第二,虽然已有知识流动,但由于各行为主体的知识深度都不高,导致知识互动转化不足。知识流动不是自发的,地理邻近或表面上相关的行为主体之间不必然产生知识流动。在国内,地方政府是建立知识流动通道的关键,政府应主动和其他行为主体互动,并成为其他行为主体之间知识流动的桥梁或"二传手"。文章进行了乐器制造的案例分析。     

Innovation in the bioeconomy – dynamics of biorefinery innovation networks

The bioeconomy has become a central concept in many strategies for future economic development, emphasising an increasing need for collaboration across industries and sectors for innovation. This paper unpacks aspects of collaboration in the bioeconomy by looking at the development of innovation networks for biorefinery technologies from 2004 to 2014 based on innovation project data from Swedish public funding agencies using a stochastic actor-oriented model for network analysis. The analysis shows that although the network grew significantly during the time period, indicating an increasing interest in biorefinery technology innovation, inter-sectoral collaboration is not favoured over intra-sectoral collaboration. As is known from previous work on social networks trust-building is a key driver for collaboration, as actors tend to form collaborations with previous partners or indirectly connected partners, creating clustered networks.     

Innovating for elderly people: the development of geront’innovations in the French silver economy

The objective of this paper is to study the supply side of the silver market, which is usually neglected by research on this topic. Adopting a systemic approach to innovation, our main goals are to identify the nature of the innovations developed, the way innovations are created, and the issues related to their emergence and diffusion. Our research is based on an empirical study of the French silver economy, which consists in an enquiry carried out in Silver Valley. The results of our study lead us to suggest a new term ‘geront’innovation’ to qualify the various forms of innovations developed to cater for the needs of elderly people. We also put forward the importance of networking and open innovation strategies. Finally, the identified barriers to emergence and diffusion as perceived by the supply side of the market lead us to suggest recommendations to support the diffusion of geront’innovations.     

Networks and network resources in technological innovation systems: Towards a conceptual framework for system building

Previous research has shown that formal networks can play a crucial role in the formation of technological innovation systems (TIS). Firms and other actors collaborate in formal networks not only to generate new knowledge but also to strategically create and shape supportive system resources such as technology specific R&D programs. This paper takes a closer look at the resources, which are developed and deployed by networks to facilitate the building up of a TIS. Networks rely not only on the organizational resources of their members but also on new resources developed at the network level including network governance structures, trust among network members, a common understanding of the strategic goals or a good reputation of the network. Our analysis shows that the capacity of networks to fulfill different tasks of system building especially depends on the network resources they are able to establish. With the differentiation of organizational, network and system resources we introduce a conceptual framework, which makes three important contributions. It highlights the strategic nature of (innovation) system building; it allows us comparing the contribution of different actors and formal networks in this regard; and it improves our understanding of how firm and system level processes are intertwined.     

Policy assessment and simulation of actor orientation for sustainable development

Understanding, assessing, and simulating behavior requires knowledge of the precepts that are explicitly or implicitly orienting behavior. Human actors can be viewed as (conscious) self-organizing systems attempting to remain viable in a diverse environment containing other self-organizing systems (other human actors, organisms, ecosystems, etc.), all driven by their own viability (sustainability) interests. These fundamental system interests, or basic orientors, have emerged in response to general environmental properties and are therefore identical across self-organizing systems: existence, effectiveness, freedom of action, security, adaptability, coexistence. Even in simulated actors learning to ‘survive’ in a difficult environment, the basic orientors emerge in the (simulated) evolutionary process — but different actors may evolve into different ‘cultural types’ with different orientor emphasis. Since balanced attention to all basic orientors is crucial for viability, the set of orientors can be used to derive indicators that facilitate comprehensive viability and sustainability assessments. The paper outlines the theoretical approach of ‘orientation theory’ and its application to the assessment and simulation of sustainable development issues. The formal approach of mapping indicators on basic orientors and assessing sustainability dynamics is illustrated using Worldwatch indicator time series. In an actor simulation this approach is used to successfully guide a small global model onto a sustainable path with high ‘quality of life’.     

Control and spread of contagion in networks with global effects

We study proliferation of an action in binary action network coordination games that are generalized to include global effects. This captures important aspects of proliferation of a particular action or narrative in online social networks, providing a basis to understand their impact on societal outcomes. Our model naturally captures complementarities among starting sets, network resilience, and global effects, and highlights interdependence in channels through which contagion spreads. We present new, natural, computationally tractable, and efficient algorithms to define and compute equilibrium objects that facilitate the general study of contagion in networks and prove their theoretical properties. Our algorithms are easy to implement and help to quantify relationships previously inaccessible due to computational intractability. Using these algorithms, we study the spread of contagion in scale-free networks with 1000 players using millions of Monte Carlo simulations. Our analysis provides quantitative and qualitative insight into the design of policies to control or spread contagion in networks. The scope of application is enlarged given the many other situations across different fields that may be modeled using this framework.     

On the diffusion of toilets as bottom of the pyramid innovation: Lessons from sanitation entrepreneurs

There is an emerging body of literature on product innovations for the poor at the bottom of the income pyramid. However, there is little on why delivery systems succeed or fail in this context and the present paper attempts to fill this void by examining why and how sanitation entrepreneurs are succeeding in India to diffuse toilets — an innovation for rural households, which never had access to one before. The literature is analyzed and confronted with the actual field practices. We demonstrate that the common thread that unifies progressive sanitation entrepreneurs is their adoption of a ‘market based approach’. There are market failures stemming from the demand side due to problems in expression of demand and its mismatch with the perceived value of the innovation. In response, sanitation entrepreneurs go beyond the standard linear model of assessing need and appropriateness of technology. They create innovations in ‘technological design’ as well as in the ‘delivery platforms’ to include practices for ‘accompaniment’, ‘sustainable maintenance’ and ‘generation of knowledge'. Thus, they make-up for sluggish or missing markets and informational asymmetries to ensure sustained use of toilets.     

复杂科层组织网络中的无标度行为

考察管理幅度随机选取的科层组织网络是否存在无标度行为。理论分析发现,该网络的生长模型具备生成无标度网络的增长条件和择优连接条件,但当累计度相同时还存在机会均等机制,即添加次数较少的节点,累计度增加的概率更大。数值模拟表明,其节点的累计度分布服从某种复杂的幂律规律,这说明现实中的科层组织网络与自然界的许多复杂网络一样具有相同的组织原理,讨论无标度特性对管理科学研究具有重要意义。     

Battle royal in biotechnology: R&D vs. product vs. process innovations

Companies regard innovation as a central element of their business. However, as not all innovation types are the same, the central question is: should their announcements bring about the same effect on performance? This article analyses potential differences in firm value derived from the innovation-type announcements ‘R&;D’, ‘product’, and ‘process’, made by intensive news-generating firms such as biotech companies. The empirical application shows a significantly positive reaction to innovation announcements, with the prospect of future innovation (‘R&;D’ investment announcements) having greater impact on firm value than ‘product’ and ‘process’ innovations. Firm experience also acts as a moderator in this innovation–performance relationship, which is particularly relevant for entrepreneurs who need to develop and send credible signals indicating the value of the firm's intangible assets to the market.     

Bringing economic opportunity into line with environmental influence: A discussion on the Coase theorem and the Porter and van der Linde hypothesis

Environmental concerns and tightened environmental policy parameters have been associated with the notion of additional costs of compliance rather than with innovation and sustainability. The contrary, has also been suggested, claiming that strict environmental legislation merely serves as a catalyst for firms to retain obvious economic and environmental mutual gains–so called win–wins–laying around waiting to be collected. Such implications can be seen from the Porter and van der Linde writings, heavily criticised by Palmer et al. as being built on faulty examples. This paper supports that conclusion and uses property rights and transactions costs theories to find private incentives to explore the win–wins for those actors who have the largest potentials to diminish the pressure on our environment. By applying the Coase theorem, emphasising transaction costs and property rights, this paper argues that strong public support is needed to create private incentives for exploring economic and environmental win–win innovations. The public support suggested is to (A) extend producer responsibilities–where the same costs which may be neglected by the end consumers will, if transferred to the design owner, be viewed as a production cost–and to (B) enforce environmental public procurement. Both may be combined with a support to (C) actors (such as non-governmental organisations and consumer agencies) positioning themselves as information bridges by informing the consumers. The negative effects of asymmetric information among actors can, thereby, be diminished as well as the low interest to primarily care for the environment among common consumers.     

Strategic management implications for the adoption of technological innovations in agricultural tractor: the role of scale factors and environmental attitude

Technological innovations in agricultural tractors have revolutionised farming, increased labour productivity and reduced operator's hazards. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relation between agricultural tractors’ technological innovations and farm size, as well as users’ attitude on environmental impact of agricultural tractors according to their age and years of activity in the farm. Results, concerning Italy, highlight that high technological innovations of tractors are associated to larger farms, which are managed professionally by more efficient and sophisticated agricultural machineries. Empirical evidence also shows that the older the tractor adopters are and the longer they have been working in agriculture, the higher is their commitment to environment protection and safe working conditions. These results could be important for critical strategic management implications to spur technological innovation in agricultural tractors that better satisfy farmer's needs and to support the fruitful adoption of innovations for an efficient and safe modern agriculture.     

A network approach to studying research propammes: mobilizing and coordinating public responses to hiv/aids

Based on the anahsis ofthe Medical and Public Health Research programme (Commis- sion of the European Communities), the paper shows how new scientific communities are created in response to the HIV/AIDS problem. W e anahze how actors are mobilized (three mobilization modes: public impetus, scientists 'initiative, scientists' initiative with public networking) and how their work is coordinated. We defend the hypothesis that these new scientific communities are flexible cooperation networks. In the case of AIDS research, there are onb a limited number o f network types (the data collection structure, the forum, the thematic partition with harmonization o f research practices, the starred around a central facilip). The coordination of these scientific cooperative networks passes through fixed and circulating intermediaries. The management of these intermediaries is a major activity for involved actors. Thus, our aim is not to study the wider social context, but to analyze networking in response to policy, initiatives.     

基于复杂网络的创新扩散研究

分别建立了基于随机网络、小世界网络和无标度网络的创新随机演化模型,讨论了创新扩散的动力学性质。通过大量的试验,得到心理阈值、人群的网络机构、初始采纳创新群体的规模和特点影响创新扩散的规律。     

Characterizing the emergence of a technological field: Expectations, agendas and networks in Lab-on-a-chip technologies

In this paper we develop and use mapping tools to investigate emerging technological fields by studying the dynamics of expectations, agenda building and early networks. In our approach, expectations describe shared beliefs with regard to prospective entities and positions. Agendas are sets of priorities present to guide the actors in their work. The structure that arises as a result of the actions and interactions of actors is the emerging network. For emerging technologies these processes are susceptible to change and the technological paths that may arise are still easy to influence. We propose that not only looking at expectation dynamics, but also including agenda setting and networks dynamics is essential in order to successfully capture the complexities of the emergence of technological paths. A major challenge for this work lies in unveiling the socio-technical dynamics leading to path emergence. For this purpose we investigate the phenomena of irreversibilities that emerge during the ongoing interactions of researchers, institutes, policy makers and firms. With these aspects in mind, we will use a broadened view of expectation dynamics in order to arrive at an improved understanding of the building blocks of path emergence. We illustrate our approach with a case study of Lab-on-a-chip technology for medical and pharmaceutical applications.