Political construction and control of technology: wave-power renewable energy technologies

Recognizing that gouernment-sponsored research, development and demonstration (R,D&D) is a rentral factor in the construction of new technologies, this paper analyzes selected aspects of the relationships between government officials, 'private' businesses and technologists, within the process of technolog development. Building on precious zoork in the social construction of technology tradition for example, of Hughes, Pinch and Biker) and in technology policy and decision-making theoy (for example, of Collingridge and Morone and Woodhouse), and using the case of wave-power R&D in the UK; the paper identifies characteristics of embryonic technological artefacts and their institutional contexts which tend to bias the socio-political construction process. The key to the paper is the extent to which such distortions lead to unwise, uneconomical and/or unfair innovations or hinder learning about seemingly inflexible technologies, which could help to reduce their complexity, scale or cost.     

Political construction and control of technology: wave-power renewable energy technologies

Recognizing that gouernment-sponsored research, development and demonstration (R,D&D) is a rentral factor in the construction of new technologies, this paper analyzes selected aspects of the relationships between government officials, ‘private’ businesses and technologists, within the process of technolog development. Building on precious zoork in the social construction of technology tradition for example, of Hughes, Pinch and Biker) and in technology policy and decision-making theoy (for example, of Collingridge and Morone and Woodhouse), and using the case of wave-power R&D in the UK; the paper identifies characteristics of embryonic technological artefacts and their institutional contexts which tend to bias the socio-political construction process. The key to the paper is the extent to which such distortions lead to unwise, uneconomical and/or unfair innovations or hinder learning about seemingly inflexible technologies, which could help to reduce their complexity, scale or cost.     

Application of technology roadmaps for renewable energy sector

Technology Roadmapping (TRM) is a growing technique widely used for strategy planning and aligning technology with overall business objectives. Technology roadmaps are extensively used in many diverse fields at product, technology, industry, company and national levels. An increasing number of articles published on TRM and technology roadmaps indicate that there is a growing attention for TRM among the researchers from academia, industry and government. In this article, an overview of the application of TRM in renewable energy sector has been provided. After survey of the relevant academic literature and industry roadmaps, we tried to group the roadmaps related to the renewable energy technologies into national, industry/sector and organizational level roadmaps. Research findings indicate that goals and objectives of renewable energy roadmaps are different at these three levels. At national level, roadmaps focus on future energy security, energy dependence, energy policy formulation and environment protection. At industry/sector level, roadmaps are used to identify vision, common needs and evaluate barriers, constraints and risks faced by the industry from technical, political and commercial aspects. Organizational roadmap focuses on evaluation and prioritization of R&D projects to achieve the business goals. Similarly different methods, tools and approaches are used to develop roadmaps at different levels. Various other characteristics of these roadmaps are also discussed and analyzed. Research findings also indicate that greater numbers of roadmaps are developed for those renewable energy technologies undergoing rapid growth. Moreover, most of these roadmaps are developed in the regions where more research, development and deployment activities of renewable energy technologies is taking place.     

欧盟可再生能源技术的研发及发展趋势

从宏观角度,对欧盟促进可再生能源技术发展的战略及相关政策与措施进行分析解读。欧盟 2020 战略确定的促进能源安全及多元化发展和积极应对气候变化的总目标是：能源体系的可持续、可靠性和竞争力。能源技术必须为实现总目标服务,其研发的主要方向是：能源更清洁、更安全,价格更合理。欧盟战略能源技术行动计划（SET－Plan）,旨在制定欧盟中长期战略能源技术的研发创新、成果转化和创新产品及服务的发展战略,包括短期的具体行动计划,也包括建立战略能源技术发展的长效机制。SET－Plan 最重要的行动之一,就是加强成员国之间以及同世界主要能源伙伴国家的国际能源科技合作。     

Cogeneration and electric power industry restructuring

In 1978, Congress passed the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) in response to the energy crisis of the early 1970s. One of the unintended results of PURPA has been to show that electric generation was not a natural monopoly and could be opened to competition. Both the theoretical and empirical determinants of cogeneration and how they may be affected by future electric power industry restructuring are important for future industrial generation decisions. This paper explores these determinants and identifies differences between industrial cogenerators which sell power back into the electricity grid (commercial generators) and those which keep all of their electricity generation for internal purposes (self generators). The empirical results indicate that increases in industrial firm technical capabilities tends to increase their probabilities of both commercial and self generating. In addition, the models indicate that increases in retail electricity prices and industrial output increases industrial generation probabilities. The ability to switch fuels enhances industrial generation probabilities, as does a decrease in the price of natural gas. The results also imply that under electric restructuring a number of industrial generators may find that they face a stranded cost problem much like the one faced by their electric utility counterparts.     

The organizational politics of information technology: Studies from the UK financial servies industry

The article critically appraises two recent contributions to studies of organizational change: processual analysis and the firm-in-sector perspective. These studies argue that managerial practice is intensely political. They also attempt to firmly locate that practice in its organizational and environmental or sectoral context. Drawing upon these studies the article examines the management of information technology (IT) in the UK life insurance sector. This examination uses a case study and sectoral research-in-progress. The article argues that organizational IT use and development is a politicla and social process characterized by tension and conflict between managers. This conclusion suggests that organizational studies of IT use need to develop more sophisticated theories of management and managerial practice. By so doing they may then be able to shed a more penetrating light on the relationships between managers, technologies and organizational change.     

Dynamics of the UK natural gas industry: System dynamics modelling and long-term energy policy analysis

We present a dynamic model of the indigenous natural gas industry in the UK. The model has been built using a system dynamics approach. Using the model several scenarios have been analyzed. We found that management of the supply-side policy alone cannot substantially postpone the discovery, production and consumption peak. We also found that the dynamics of the main variables, namely, exploration, production and consumption, are sensitive to initial demand conditions. Postponing the onset of gas price increases can therefore be achieved more effectively through efforts to reduce demand growth. One might expect that a low taxation policy would encourage more exploration and production of gas and thereby stimulate higher consumption rates. Instead, there was no overall net effect on production and consumption in the long term. The depletion effect on cost of exploration acts as counterbalance to low taxation policy. Depletion effect causes cost and thus price to rise further which depress consumption rate. The advances in exploration and production technology can delay the peak of exploration, production and consumption. Technological improvements mean lower cost of exploration and production which pressure down the long-term pattern of price dynamics.     

Economic restructuring and the debt problem: the Greek case

The Greek postwar economic development process clearly illustrates the links between the debt explosion, that many countries in the periphery and semi-periphery face at the moment, and the strategy of free-market economic restructuring. It is argued that both the balance of payments and the budget deficits, which fuelled the Greek debt explosion in the 1980s, have been heavily conditioned by structural problems that are directly related to the development strategy adopted by the Greek ruling élite. In the absence of radical structural changes, a new stop–go cyclical pattern tends to become a permanent feature of the development process: debt-led growth followed by Stabilization Programmes to secure the external debt servicing     

New technology and the economic organization of the clothing industry

The economic organization of an industry is ultimately determined by the cost functions of its component firms. The costs that matter for the competitive state of an industry are not just long-run variable costs but also the costs of entry to and exit from the industry, and the joint costs of different products that the firms in the industry produce. In the clothing industry the costs of creating and implementing new designs is a further important factor affecting competition between firms. Since costs are largely determined by technology, we expect repercussions on the organization of the industry when technology changes. Application of the new information technologies in the clothing industry will encourag agglomerations by growth and by merger, with larger firms producing a wider range of products and introducing new products faster than hitherto. Trends in the geographic organization of production will also be reversed.     

Competitive strategy and the implementation of a new network technology: the case of EFTPOS in the UK

This article analyses competrtion and cooperation between UK banks, as they attempted to develop a national syitem jor electronic funds transfer at the point of sale (EFTPOS) The banks formed a {epanste company, EFTPOS UK Ltd, to develop a technically sophisticated national system, but soon interbank divisions led the larger banks to develop national schemes from pnwourly 'exfierzmental' networks. Over a period of two years, competition came to be defined as that between banks supporing the Switch scheme and banks supporting a Visa afebit turd senme. During this period the banks made repeated public declarations of the commritment to EFTPOS UK and represented nascent, proprietary EFTPOS networks as computible with the national scheme. The process by which the banks attempted to make sente of that ambiguous competitive environment is described and we use the idea of metastable' competive rategies to represent the successive temporary commitments the banks made to particular ways of understanding thew competitiue environments. 'strategic maps are drawn to represent stages in bank thinking on the possible competitive outcomes of EFTPOS development.     

英国的创意产业技术战略

英国技术战略委员会(TSB)于2009年发布的《创意产业技术战略(2009-2012)》报告,在深入分析创意产业特点及发展环境变化、影响创意产业发展的技术方向及其创意产业发展新趋势的基础上,提出了支持创意产业技术创新的系列举措.本文在该报告的基础上,结合英国对创意产业特征的新认识,对英国创意产业发展战略进行了解析,并提出了对我国发展创意产业的几点建议,如应密切关注产业发展新特点和发展机遇、 高度重视创意产业技术创新、关注重要技术方向以及为创新营造良好环境等.     

Mineral resources for renewable energy: Optimal timing of energy production

The production of energy from renewable sources is much more intensive in minerals than that from fossil resources. The scarcity of certain minerals limits the potential for substituting renewable energy for scarce fossil resources. However, minerals can be recycled, while fossil resources cannot. We develop an intertemporal model to study the dynamics of the optimal energy mix in the presence of mineral intensive renewable energy and fossil energy. We analyze energy production when both mineral and fossil resources are scarce, but minerals are recyclable. We show that the greater the recycling rate of minerals, the more the energy mix should rely on renewable energy, and the sooner should investment in renewable capacity take place. We confirm these results even in the presence of other better known factors that affect the optimal schedule of resource use: expected productivity growth in the renewable sector, imperfect substitution between the two sources of energy, convex extraction costs for mineral resources and pollution from the use of fossil resources.     

Road-mapping,disruptive technology,and semiconductor innovation: the case of gallium arsenide development in the UK

The semiconductor industry is known for its use of ‘road-maps’ to guide innovation strategies, especially as regards the application of Moore's Law to silicon. However, the history of gallium arsenide highlights a limitation of such an approach. Road-mapping works best for technologies in which technical progress is incremental, and for which applications are predictable. However, gallium arsenide's development did not follow a predictable path. Often touted as the semiconductor of the future because of its potential for high speed computing, gallium arsenide remained a niche technology for many years until a number of consumer applications were developed. If, as occurred with gallium arsenide, the key commercial applications (such as mobile phones, satellite TV, and CD and DVD players) could not be predicted, then a road-map could provide little guidance for investment.     

Options in technology investment games: The real world TFT-LCD industry case

The Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) industry has demonstrated that the investment of huge amounts of capital in new plants is a key factor for success. Decisions about investing in the latest generation of plant involve billions of dollars and a great deal of uncertainty. Moreover, the industry shows distinct oligopolistic characteristics, so the first mover's reactions must be considered when making capital decisions in such competitive environments. The traditional net present value (NPV) rule is a ‘now-or-never’ concept that fails to capture the need for managerial flexibility, which is especially important when investments are irreversible and involve a great deal of uncertainty. In this paper, we use a combination of real options and game theory to analyze the investment strategies of a case company in the TFT-LCD industry. The results show that real options reveal the value of flexibility, which NPV fails to consider. In addition, we apply game theory analysis to different investment strategies to demonstrate the decision-making processes used by competing companies.     

论可再生能源的开发与利用

能源是经济发展和社会进步的重要物质资料，从利用方式可把能源分为不可再生能源和可再生能源，不可再生能源在世界经济发展和人类进步中发挥着非常重要的作用。同时，却又给人类制造着生态危机，而且不可再生能源储量有限，终有一天会枯竭，由此引发的世界能源冲突不断加剧，这决定着人类要去开发利用可再生能源，可再生能源除了拥有不可再生能源的一切优势外，并不会给人类构成任何危害，能够满足人类对能源的长远需求，为人类创造和平、自由、平等和繁荣，中国的强盛，中华民族的复兴，决定着我们必须拥有稳定的，越来越多的能源，然而，中国的不可再生能源储量低，远远不能满足自身日益增长的能源需求，而且，不可再生能源已经使我们面临着严重的生态危机，因此，我们应该积极开发利用可再生能源，应把可再生能源开发利用列为我国的一项基本国策。     

New UK interdisciplinary research centres: reorganization for new generic technology

This article considers the various strategic and organizational problems connected with the UK's introduction of university-based Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IRCs) to develop the knowledge bases underlying key new generic technologies—such as biotechnology and high temperature superconductivity. The new IRCs are set against the context of the UK's declining economic competitiveness and the UK's present rationalization of higher education, including the further concentration of university scientific research in fewer departments and centres. The origins of the IRC model are examined and related to similar cantres now being introduced in the USA. Mobility between the IRCs, university departments and participating firms is seen as a key issue, as is the question of whether a balance of resources can be maintained. A sensitive issue is whether or not the sort of strategic management of research resources envisioned will result in long-term distortions of organizational decelopment—and of the overall intellectual directions, shape and standing of UK universities.     

Firm turnover,restructuring and labour productivity in transition: the case of Poland

Many studies have found strong and positive relationship between per capita income and health care expenditure. These studies usually adopt the assumptions that (1) the relationships among the variables are constant; and/or (2) the supply-side market for health care could be treated by using standard demand functions models. To take into account of the supply side of health care, we use the demand and supply approach with the cointegration model to re-examine this issue. By using Taiwan health care expenditure data, our results show that the real income elasticity is smaller than unity and the health care expenditures are primarily for ‘curing’ rather than ‘caring’.     

The co-evolution of technology and methods of standard setting: the case of the mobile phone industry

This paper applies the concept of co-evolution to technology, institutions, and industry structure in the mobile phone industry with a focus on technology and the institution/method of standard setting. The paper shows how changes in technology have caused the method of standard setting to come full circle. New switching technologies, in particular electronic switching, enabled a change from integral to modular problem solving and thus a change from quasi-vertical integration to open standard setting in the wireline telecommunications industry in the late 1970s and later in the mobile phone industry. Growth in those mobile phone markets that initially implemented an open standard setting process encouraged other countries to adopt similar types of standard setting where government agencies and firms were the mechanisms for this transmission of open standard setting methods. However, the latest technological change, the mobile Internet, requires integral problem solving and this has caused quasi-vertical integration to return in the form of service providers determining the mobile Internet standards and the specifications for the phones that support their mobile Internet services. A new set of firms is transmitting these methods of standard setting to the rest of the world.

Price-cost markups in UK industry

This article tests for the presence of monopolistic price markups across UK industrial sectors by testing for a non-zero covariance between the Solow residual and various instruments. This restriction derives from profit maximising conditions for a representative imperfectly competitive firm under the assumption of constant returns to scale. We find evidence of significant markups in the Manufacturing and Services sectors which together account for more than 90% of total employment within the UK.     

Determining the going market value of a business in an emerging information technology industry: The case of the cellular communications industry

Given the phenomenal growth or the anticipation of growth in certain information technology industries, concerns for economy of scale, market access and expansion, and the need for ongoing research and development are resulting in mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. A key question in such industries is what is, or should be the going market value of a business? This paper suggests an approach to imbed market penetration models in the popular value-based planning approach suggested by Rappaport [36] to obtain the going market value of a business. The model developed in implementing the approach is tailored for the cellular communications industry. Limitations and adaptations of the approach to other industries are discussed.