Implementation of Social Innovations in Subsistence Marketplaces: A Facilitated Institutional Change Process Model

Implementation of social innovations in subsistence marketplaces often fails as a result of not bringing about institutional change. In this article, we study the process through which social enterprises facilitate local communities in effecting the process of institutional change as they introduce social innovations. Analyzing rich ethnographic data from 19 social enterprises, we develop the process of “facilitated institutional work” for implementing social innovation. We present a process model for implementing social innovation with four distinct stages involving social enterprises—(1) legitimating themselves within local communities, (2) disrupting aspects of the local institutional environment, (3) helping re‐envision institutional norms or practices, and (4) resourcing the institutional change process. The four stages relate to important concerns that local communities have in working with social enterprises implementing social innovations. These community‐level concerns revolve around the following questions: (1) Why should we allow an external social enterprise to be involved in our affairs? (2) Why do we need to change? (3) What should we change and what should we sustain? and (4) What role should we play in implementing change (such as in mobilizing resources)? This article demonstrates that bringing about institutional change is often necessary for implementing social innovations in subsistence marketplaces. The findings depict a participatory approach in which social enterprises work with local communities to bring about the institutional conditions necessary for implementing social innovation.     

Sustainable Product and Market Development for Subsistence Marketplaces: Creating Educational Initiatives in Radically Different Contexts*

Developing products and business processes to serve subsistence marketplaces (or the roughly 4 billion poor around the world referred to as the bottom of the pyramid) is a significant challenge for businesses. Despite the importance of subsistence marketplaces, most product development educational curricula have been focused on relatively resource‐rich and literate consumers and markets. We teach an innovative year‐long product development course which includes an international immersion experience and which covers a broad spectrum of learning from understanding poverty, to consumer behavior, to product development and engineering design specifically for subsistence consumers. This unique course represents a pioneering effort to focus attention and create knowledge about product development, marketing, management, and engineering practices for subsistence marketplaces. Our two‐semester course sequence for graduate‐level students in a variety of business and engineering disciplines and industrial design combines in‐class pedagogy with experiential learning and results in useful and marketable product concepts and prototypes. Working on projects with multinational companies or startups, students identify an opportunity of general need, conduct field market research to better understand subsistence consumer needs and contexts through an international immersion experience, develop a product concept, convert the concept to a workable prototype, and develop a manufacturing plan, marketing strategy, and overall business plan for the product. Overlaying the content found in a typical new product development lab course we develop a contextual understanding of subsistence marketplaces, setting the stage for new product development. A central aspect of the learning experience is travel to subsistence markets for actual immersion in the context and to conduct market research. Our course is at the confluence of two of the most important issues facing humanity, subsistence and sustainability. Lessons learned here can also be extended to other radically different contexts, such as future scenarios involving severe energy shortages or climate change consequences. Such educational initiatives provide challenging learning experiences in preparing students for the unique demands of the 21st century.     

Finding Commercially Attractive User Innovations: A Test of Lead‐User Theory*

Firms and governments are increasingly interested in learning to exploit the value of lead‐user innovations for commercial advantage. Improvements to lead‐user theory are needed to inform and to guide these efforts. The present study empirically tests and confirms the basic tenets of lead‐user theory. It also uncovers some new refinements and related practical applications. Using a sample of users and user–innovators drawn from the extreme sport of kite surfing, an analysis was made of the relationship between the commercial attractiveness of innovations developed by users and the intensity of the lead‐user characteristics those users display. A first empirical analysis is provided of the independent effects of its two key component variables. In the empirical study of user modifications to kite‐surfing equipment, it was found that both components independently contribute to identifying commercially attractive user innovations. Component 1, the high expected‐benefits dimension, predicts innovation likelihood, and component 2, the ahead of the trend dimension, predicts both the commercial attractiveness of a given set of user‐developed innovations and innovation likelihood due to a newly proposed innovation supply side effect. It was concluded that the component variables in the lead‐user definition are indeed independent dimensions, so neither can be dropped without loss of information—an important matter for lead‐user theory. It also was found that adding measures of users' local resources can improve the ability of the lead‐user construct to identify commercially attractive innovations under some conditions. The findings reported here have practical as well as theoretical import. Product modification and development has been found to be a relatively common user behavior in many fields. Thus, from 10 to nearly 40 percent of users report having modified or developed a product for in‐house use in the case of industrial products or for personal use in the case of consumer products in fields sampled to date. As a practical matter, therefore, it is important to find ways to selectively identify the user innovations that manufacturers will find to be the basis for commercially attractive products in the collectivity of user‐developed innovations. The implications of these findings for theory as well as for practical applications of the lead‐user construct are discussed—that is, how variables used in lead‐user studies can profitably be adapted to fit specific study contexts and purposes.     

Social Movement Theory,Collective Action Frames and Union Theory: A Critique and Extension

The publication of John Kelly's Rethinking Industrial Relations in 1998 spawned a growing interest among researchers in exploring how social movement (SM) theory can be used to inform union research, particularly in the context of revitalization/renewal debates. Our starting proposition is that this approach can be extended through an engagement with the larger corpus of SM theory. We focus in particular on the ‘collective action frame’ concept. Drawing on examples used by SM scholars, we illustrate how these concepts can be used to extend and enrich union theory and pose new questions concerning the role of unions.     

企业理论的社会资本逻辑

本文在回顾以知识为基础的企业理论的基础上，提出了社会资本不仅是企业战略资源，也是企业的一种有效的治理机制。企业交易复杂性程度越高，社会资本治理存在的价值就越大。按照社会资本治理的逻辑，企业比市场更能有效地创造社会资本，更能充分有效地利用社会资本的价值；与之相适应，本文分析了企业制度安排从资本为基础转向以社会资本为基础的可能性与现实性。     

煤炭项目社会评价的理论探讨

一、煤炭项目社会评价的必要性1 有利于解决煤炭项目实施过程中产生的社会问题 ,减轻项目对社会的不利影响 ,促进煤炭项目的顺利进行。煤炭项目在客观上一般都存在对社会的有利影响和不利影响。在煤炭项目建设和生产过程中 ,越来越多的社会问题直接关系到煤炭项目的顺利发展 ,如 :矿山建设征地引起的移民会导致移民生活习惯的改变、预期生活水平的下降 ;由于煤炭生产和建设的需要 ,有的矿山将周围的地下水抽干 ,地下水资源的匮乏直接影响到当地人民的生活和生产 ;矿山爆破给当地人民生活带来的不便 ;用户燃煤对环境的影响 ;土地塌陷、修筑道…     

印铁烘房设备的技术改进

本文从实用的角度出发。讨论了引进印铁烘房设备的部分技术改进问题，并提出和采取了二个改进方法。     

滋墨对彩色复制的影响

自有印刷技术产业以来.印刷业者的主要任务始终是复制原始资料:照片,图像、文本或这几项的结合而形成的资料。因此,不仅印刷的内容要与原始资料一致.而且格式、颜色、版面安排也要与原始资料一致。实际上.印刷的基本原则是印品质量应尽可能地接近于原始资料质     

Predictors of the Survival of Innovations*

This article examines the impact of key success factors on the survival of innovations that have reached the market and were developed by inventors outside of established organizations. It is of interest to learn which characteristics predict, at an early stage, the duration of the innovation's length of sales, because this duration is important to the financial success of new products. A focus on survival also can contribute conceptual clarity to the study of new product development. This study uses the Inventor's Assistance Program (IAP) at the Canadian Innovation Centre (CIC) in Waterloo, Canada, as the source of data. The CIC is a not‐for‐profit agency that provides various services to foster business development involving innovative products and services. Analysts in the IAP evaluate a specific product idea or invention on 37 dimensions before it has reached the market. The data for the present study involved these 37 variables evaluated each with a three‐point linguistic scale. As the evaluations of the criteria are subjective, they might be argued to contain inaccuracies compared to objective data. On the other hand, the analysts use multiple related measures of concepts that have been shown to increase predictive accuracy. The use of experts who are unrelated to the projects avoids decision‐making biases potentially associated with project managers' assessment of their own projects, such as unrealistic optimism. The recording of the expert evaluations of the ideas before they reached the market and independent of the measure of success, rather than using post‐project completion evaluations, eliminates measurement biases such as hindsight bias and common method variance bias. Identifying information was used in these records to conduct a telephone survey of the inventors. An exploratory method of data analysis is identified and used that distinguishes research‐appropriate constructs and their indicators in these data. Cluster analysis was performed, and survival regression correlated cluster scores with survival. Three variables were found to significantly affect survival: anticipated stable demand, price required for profitability, and technical product maturity. In addition, the degree of competition had a marginally significant effect. Because these variables can be assessed at an early stage of an inventions' development, the expected survival time for a specific invention may be computed by entering these assessment values into the described survival model. Then this and other information may be used to compute the expected return of an invention.     

Toward a Geocentric Theory of Multinational Evolution: The Implications from the Asian MNEs as Latecomers

Despite their growing proliferation and importance, the multinational enterprises (MNEs) from the developing countries have not received adequate attention. Further, there is a growing concern with the validity of the extant MNE theories in the context of globalization and network. This paper seeks to address two questions: (1) how much can we apply the extant MNE theories (which are built on the evidence from the developed countries) to the MNEs from the developing countries as latecomers; and (2) how much can the evidence of the MNEs from the developing countries as latecomers offer to modify and enhance the extant MNE theories. The evidence of one longitudinal embedded case study shows that the extant MNE theories need modifications (so as to apply to the MNEs from the developing countries as latecomers) and enhancements (so as to better explain all MNEs). Also discussed are the significant implications for further theory building with regard to MNEs in the context of globalization and network.     

基于投资理论的中国地方政府社会性支出不足研究

中国经济增长与宏观稳定课题组(2006)指出,当前中国的发展出现了以国富与民生关系失衡为本质特征的增长失衡,政府社会性支出不足是导致这一失衡的重要原因。社会性支出用于提供教育、医疗、社会保障等社会性公共产品,地方政府在该项支出上应发挥主导作用。本文从经济人假设出发,运用投资理论从一个新的视角研究中国地方政府的社会性公共产品的供给情况,以期找出中国地方政府社会性支出不足的原因。     

Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Trade Associations: The Case of Real Estate Appraisers

This paper proposes a developmental theory of trade association life cycles with special emphasis on the case of real estate appraisers. Given a neo-institutional perspective of the demand for appraisal services, the paper views real estate appraisers as information specialists. Trade associations tend to develop along a common, although not strictly fixed, set of steps. At each stage, various institutional activities occur that when observed, can be used to characterize the association's rate of development. In this context, real estate appraisers and their institutions are examined. Recent advances provide evidence that major changes are currently underway.     

新世纪中国钢铁科技创新发展辨析

新世纪中国钢铁生产高速增长的同时,钢铁科技也在紧凑型流程上长足发展,大量发展与采用先进前沿技术,科技著作繁荣,清洁生产水平提高,产品结构优化,信息技术迅速应用,转炉复吹溅渣长寿技术,编制中长期科技发展指南等方面取得了显著成绩。但装备大型化、淘汰落后、自主创新等方面仍需努力缩小差距。     

以科技进步求发展以技术创新求生存

中江利通印刷机械有限公司是由原四川省国营中江机械厂改制而成的一个股份制企业。企业始建于1958年,在机械设计和制造方面具有四十多年的历史。上世纪90年代以来,公司依靠科技进步,不断开拓创新,狠抓新产品开发和技术改造,使企业得到了飞速发展,成为一个集“科、工、贸”于一体的知名企业,技术力量雄     

Subsistence production,markets, and dietary diversity in the Kenyan small farm sector

Undernutrition and low dietary quality remain widespread problems in poor population segments, especially among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, the question how smallholder systems can be made more nutrition-sensitive is of particular relevance for research and policy. Recent studies analyzed whether increasing farm production diversity may help to improve nutrition. Most existing studies found a positive but small effect on dietary diversity on average. The underlying mechanisms were not examined in detail. This article tests the hypothesis that the effect of farm diversity on nutrition is small because production diversity is positively associated with dietary diversity obtained from subsistence production but negatively associated with dietary diversity obtained from the market. This hypothesis is confirmed with data from Kenya, using different indicators of production diversity and dietary diversity scores at household and individual levels. The results underline the important role of markets for smallholder diets and nutrition. Hence, strengthening markets and improving market access should be a key strategy to make smallholder systems more nutrition-sensitive.     

纸张对印刷图像不同阶调色彩复制效果的影响分析

本研究采用IGT AIC2-5印刷适性仪测试纸张对油墨色彩再现性的影响。结果表明：在不同阶调区域,同一纸张对油墨的色彩再现效果存在着极大的差别。且依据4种纸张打印得到的不同油墨色彩再现性指标（灰度、色强度、色差和色效率）的测试分析,发现在铜版纸上,黄墨的灰度大于胶版纸,色效率低于胶版纸,青墨和品红墨的效果完全相反;纸张性能对青、品红墨颜色再现效果的影响主要表现在中暗调区域,而对于黄墨,在整个阶调的颜色再现效果都有影响。通过本文的分析,希望能为制定印刷及相关标准提供参考依据。     

基于DEA的中小企业技术创新绩效评价实证研究

中小企业在我国国民经济及社会发展中占有相当重要的地位与作用。对中小企业进行技术创新绩效评价是提高其技术创新成功率的有效手段。本文构建了技术创新绩效评价指标,利用DEA计算所调研的中小企业技术创新资源投入产出的效率,并通过分别去掉DEA计算中的每项输入或输出指标来分析各项指标对总效率值的影响程度,最后提出了若干提高中小企业技术创新绩效的建议。     

Competition,Innovation and the Use of Innovations

I examine the effect of competition on the production and use of innovations using evidence from a natural experiment of policy reform, the introduction of cartel legislation in the U.K. in the late 1950’s. I compare manufacturing industries which had been collusive and were therefore affected by the policy with those that had been competitive and were not affected. The intensification of competition following the abolition of cartels caused a short‐run decrease in innovations produced, but had no significant effect in the long run. In contrast, innovations used increased both in the short run and in the long run.