`Green’ certification as a managerial technology

This paper analyses the role of the `green’ standard BS 7750 in 11 Danish firms and discusses why firms seek certification according to this standard, which is voluntary. In addition to possible greening effects, the paper identifies four other types of effects that are more orientated towards the management of the firm. It is possible for managers to draw on the goodwill associated with such a green standard to transform the firm making it more efficient, creating a better marketing platform, defusing public political interests, or creating an interorganisational network of competence-sharing. The `green’ standard is thus mobilised not only to protect the environment but also to act as a managerial technology, mobilising interests of the firm rather than just those of the environment.     

The ‘textual attitude’ and new technology

One of the most important tasks information systems executives face is making sense of emerging opportunities for organizational innovation through information technology. However, the parlance of information systems practitioners yields a variety of metaphors suggesting that this crucial task is a perilous one, in which success is far from assured. This paper reports on an interpretive study of these metaphors, using data from field interviews. Five images are identified, which evoke certain hazards and illuminate aspects of a successful executive response. The subsequent analysis of these images reveals how they serve constructively in promoting rationality in sensemaking, against a background that includes an ontologically problematic innovation and belief formation under institutional pressure. The paper concludes with some thoughts on the wider role of discourse in innovation sensemaking.     

The role of a firm's absorptive capacity and the technology transfer process in clusters: How effective are technology centres in low-tech clusters?

Due to its unique political institutions and good economic track record, Switzerland used to be called a special case. This paper investigates the start-up propensities in this country based on the individual data of the adult population survey of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. The focus is on the factors that are distinctive for Switzerland: language differences and differences in taxes on corporate profit and personal income. There are substantial entrepreneurship disparities among the language areas of Switzerland. Still, I do not find evidence for a cultural influence. The different start-up propensities in the three language areas can be explained by structural characteristics of the regional economy. The same applies to differences in income and profit taxes. If other regional factors are taken into account, I do not find evidence for a direct influence of taxes on the entrepreneurial propensity of the inhabitants of Swiss regions. There is however some evidence for indirect effects. This paper adds to our understanding of the effects of culture and tax differences on entrepreneurship.     

柔性制造技术（flexible manufacturing technology——FMT）

柔性制造技术也称柔性集成制造技术，是现代先进制造技术的统称。柔性制造技术集自动化技术、信息技术和制作加工技术于一体，把以往工厂企业中相互孤立的工程设计、制造、经营管理等过程，在计算机及其软件和数据库的支持下，构成一个覆盖整个企业的有机系统。所谓“柔性”，即灵活性，主要表现在：①生产设备的零件、部件可根据所加工产品的需要变换；[第一段]     

What do we [not] know about technology entrepreneurship research?

This study aims to review what we do (and do not) know about technology entrepreneurship (TE) research to date. Based on a categorized bibliometric analysis resulting from a systematic review of 135 scientific articles published in refereed journals over the past 27 years (1986–2013), we identify the core domains of TE, its intellectual structure, the scientific journals with a major impact in this field of research, and the affiliation and collaboration networks within it. Specifically, through a detailed analysis of article co-citations within the TE area, this study provides co-citation networks of authors, journals, and their respective clusters, revealing their rankings in terms of contributions to the TE literature. This comprehensive analysis can be used to enhance our understanding of TE and support further research in this field.     

On the phenomenology of technology: the “Janus-faces” of mobile phones

This paper argues that technologies perform in Janus faced ways; that is, in ways that are ironic, perverse and paradoxical, and it is argued that these qualities are important to apprehend if we are to more fully understand the role of technology in organizations and in our daily lives.The argument opens with an account of Janus as a metaphorical evocation of irony and paradox, and general examples of Janus faced technologies are given. Prominent philosophies of technology and theoretical approaches to technology are discussed in terms of their capacity to account for generalized examples of irony and paradox. Of these, it is argued that the most satisfactory account is provided by (a) Heidegger’s suggestion that our world is enframed by technology, taken together with (b) a logic of sociotechnical systems based in relational and hybrid ontologies. This sketch of the philosophical landscape occupied by Janus is followed by a interpretation of the specific case of mobile phones, which provides concrete and hopefully vivid examples of the Janus faced performance of technology.The conclusion reached is that the Janus faced metaphor and its philosophical context provides the researcher with the analytic advantages of foregrounding uncertainty, avoiding an essentialist or determinist role for technology, and allowing for the possibility of the presence of tension and contradiction in accounts of sociotechnical outcomes.     

Introducing the impact of technology: a ‘neo-contingency’ HRM Anglo-French comparison

The paper analyses the impact of technological and national-culture factors on certain HRM policies and practices in Britain and France. This perspective supports the neo-contingency approach, which does not claim primacy for either the technological or the national-cultural factors shaping HRM policies and practices. HR managers in each country in high-, mid- and low-tech firms were surveyed. The relevance in the diffusion of certain patterns of HRM policies and practices advocates that employees working in intensive technology firms need a creative and adaptive HR management approach. The differences found in the application of the HRM practices studied between the two countries are illustrated through the educational system, which is different in France and Britain.     

International technology transfer policy: from “contract bargaining” to “sourcing”

A significant shift in the basic philosophy of international technology transfer policy has taken place which has generated new policy concerns and issues in international technology transfer. We describe this change as a change from “contract bargaining” policy context towards “sourcing” policy context. Starting from the analysis of the underlying assumptions and effects of international technology transfer policy from the 1960s/70s we briefly outline the major changes that have taken place in the world economy which made the changes in international technology transfer policy unavoidable. We analyse the main technology transfer issues created by globalized economy within, as we call it, a “sourcing framework” and compare the main policy issues in international technology transfer in the shift from “contract bargaining” to a “sourcing” context.     

Soviet-type economies' strategy for catching-up through technology im ports—an anatomy of failure

This article is a contribution to a more systematic explanation of the strategy failure of Soviet-type economies (STE's) in catching-up with the West through technology and related capital imports. The failure is put in system-specific terms, because these features have such an impact on the outcome of the said strategy. The theory underlying the Soviet-type economy is given where necessary. The official expectations of STE's with respect to technology imports, the absorbing of both imported and domestic technologies (comparatively) and the upgrading of any technologies, domestic or imported, are outlined. The unrealistic nature of central planners expectations with regard to the costs and benefits of the catching-up strategy is exposed. How STE's paid more in order to earn less is the topic of the final section of the article.     

Pattern of information technology use: The impact on buyer–suppler coordination and performance

The use of information technologies between supply chain organizations has been shown to promote organizational coordination and have a positive impact on performance. Drawing from organizational theories of learning, we build on this research by proposing a model that relates the pattern of supplier use of IT to specific types of supply chain coordination activities and a comprehensive set of organizational benefits. Specifically, we evaluate how two patterns of IT use by suppliers (exploitation and exploration) relate to two specific types of coordination activities with their buyers (operational and strategic coordination), which in turn are posited to promote specific organizational benefits. Using data from 241 first-tier OEM suppliers in the computer industry, our findings show that each pattern of IT use directly promotes a specific type of coordination activity. Although both types of coordination activities are needed to achieve both strategic and operational benefits, we find each coordination activity to be uniquely promoted by a specific pattern of IT use. IT use for exploitation is found to be an antecedent to operational coordination; IT use for exploration is found to be an antecedent to strategic coordination. No crossover between pattern of use and coordination activities is found. Our findings show that to achieve a complete set of benefits, suppliers must ultimately use IT for both exploration and exploitation. These findings provide a deeper understanding of the mechanism of how the pattern of IT use can result in a comprehensive set of organizational benefits for supplier firms.     

How do interregional spillovers influence the distribution of technology? The case of Chinese manufacturing

The Chinese economy displays considerable inequality across regions. In this paper, we analyzed the distribution of intermediate input shares in China. We use regional input–output tables from 2007 and find that regions with higher GDP per capita generally had higher input shares, regardless of sector. Then, using intermediate input shares as a proxy of technology, we analyzed the pattern of regional technology distributions across manufacturing sectors as well as the extent of interregional technology spillovers. Our results indicate that interregional backward spillovers have significantly positive impacts on the shape of the technology distributions in eastern (coastal) regions. By contrast, the vertical spillovers of the central and western regions are largely dominated by intra-regional forward effects. Our results suggest that the shift of Chinese manufacturing from coastal to inland regions with lower production costs cannot reduce the imbalance among regions unless the technology gap is narrowed.     

The evolving role of agricultural technology indicators and economic growth in rural poverty: has the ideas machine broken down?

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of technical progress in agriculture on changes in rural poverty in Pakistan by using annual data from 1975–2011. Data is analyzed by the set of sophisticated econometric techniques i.e., cointegration theory, Granger causality test and variance decomposition, etc. The results reveal that agricultural technology indicators act as an important driver to alleviate rural poverty in Pakistan. Granger causality test indicate that causality runs from technological indicators to rural poverty but not vice versa. However, agricultural irrigated land and industry value added, both does not Granger cause rural poverty, which holds neutrality hypothesis between the variables. Variance decomposition analysis shows that among all the technological indicators, agricultural machinery in form of tractors have exerts the largest contribution to changes in rural poverty in Pakistan. The study concludes that agricultural technology indicators are closely associated with economic growth and rural poverty in Pakistan. Technology in Pakistan has a low pace but still old technology continuously contributed towards poverty reduction. The question whether idea machine is broken down or not? Still need further exploration.     

Perceived usefulness,ease of use and user acceptance of blockchain technology for digital transactions – insights from user-generated content on Twitter

Although blockchain has attracted a great deal of attention from academia and industry there is a lack of studies on acceptance drivers. This study explores blockchain acceptance by mining the collective intelligence of users on Twitter. It maps blockchain user acceptance drivers to technology acceptance constructs. The analysis shows that users are attracted by security, privacy, transparency, trust and traceability aspects provided by blockchain. On Twitter more discussions on blockchain benefits than on drawbacks. Initial coin offering (ICO) is extensively discussed. The study provides guidelines for managers and concludes by presenting the limitations of the study along with future research directions.     

Growing and mature stage technology selection patterns of small sized firms in selected Asian countries — Korea,Hong Kong,and Japan

By comparing successful technology innovation cases with unsuccessful ones in Hong Kong and Korea, as deueloping countries, comparing with Japan, as an advanced country in the Asian region, this study suggests a basic policy of the selection of R&D projects for small firms in developing countries. These countries have great differences. For instance, with respect to governmental support, small firms in Hong Kong do not haue any opportunity of government support while small firms in Korea enjoy it so much. In Japan, small firms have enjoyed it previously but now they face the similar situation of small firms in Hong Kong. Based on the difference of these countries, the existing hypotheses related to technology innovation are elicited and modified suitably for small sized firms in developing country, since these hypotheses have been derived on the basis of large firms in advanced countries by other authors. 77ns study shows the different selection pattern of R&D projects with respect to growing and mature stage technologies, based on the field study.