Generic innovation dynamics across the industrial technology life cycle: Platform equation modeling of invention and innovation activity

We describe here a generic approach to innovation dynamics based on an integrated framework for inventions and innovations applied via a platform equation and model across the industrial technology life cycle. We test the model for metals and other materials, and demonstrate that this model correctly describes the production activity for several materials and energy conversion technologies.Innovation activity patterns are shown for several oxides, metals, oil and wind energy and its derivatives. The metals Cu, Al, W, Mo and Pb are particularly studied for the amount produced over time. The total activity for the metals encompasses both the invention and innovation stage for a particular metal. Four major stages and two sub stages are identified for the discovery (invention) and subsequent growth regimes (i.e. the innovation stage). The pattern equation appears to clearly capture all these stages for the metals studied — work is ongoing for similar analyses of energy and other materials. Although the metals studied existed over differing periods (e.g. copper greater than 200 years whereas aluminum, just over 100 years), one single pattern equation appears to capture all the major trends. The use of the model is also shown for productivity analysis, especially for the condition of radical innovation (very rapid growth). For sustained radical innovation, namely, when the output of the produced material per unit time, keeps on increasing with time, there are various factors which may influence growth. For the conditions where thermal activation and plant size are the dominant variables, their impact on the growth may be examined in the context of the pattern equation. A preliminary analysis of oxide production activity also appears to follow this same innovation model.The results suggest a fertile field of future research extending the initial platform equation model to include R&D, Patents, and Performance, as well as Sales, as innovation activity. Further, the model shows promise in combination with the ARI methodology model for analysis and assessment of existing and future industrial technology life cycles involving material, process, product, software and service innovations.     

Embedded industrial production systems: Lessons from waste management in zinc production

To meet the sustainability challenge private companies must implement corporate strategies and adopt novel technologies. The technical and social embeddedness of industrial production systems, however, complicates these systems' transition towards sustainability. In the paper, mechanisms and conditions are reported for the development and implementation of waste management options in embedded industrial production systems. The focus is on the Dutch zinc production industry, which had to deal with a major waste problem; the generation of jarosite. The industry's options were to increase the jarosite waste storage capacity, to develop a jarosite treatment process or to switch to a zinc-ore of low-iron content whereby no jarosite waste would be generated anymore. Required conditions appeared to be a combination of technological capability and technical embedding and favourable economics. Case study research, however, revealed that adequate stakeholder management is crucial to address social pressure exerted and to obtain external acceptance for any transition strategy. Whilst appropriate, internal technological capabilities are important, effective interactions with and enrolment of various firm-external actors are crucial. In the case of zinc, access to the heterogeneous external actor network was critical for the development of the jarosite treatment solution direction. In conclusion, both the technical, organizational and social embedding of new technologies are crucial for successful implementation.     

Shaping user-side innovation through standardisation: The example of ICT

This paper looks at the relations that exist between standardisation and user-side innovation in ICT. Some necessary background information are followed by a discussion of how standards and user-side innovations are shaped. A mutual influence between standardisation and innovation can be identified. To avoid the emergence of standards that are beneficial only for a handful of users a co-ordinated representation of users in standards setting is suggested.     

Benefit entitlement and unemployment duration: The role of policy endogeneity

The potential duration of benefits is generally viewed as an important determinant of unemployment duration. This paper evaluates a unique policy change that prolonged entitlement to regular unemployment benefits from 30 weeks to a maximum of 209 weeks for elderly individuals in certain regions of Austria. In the evaluation, we explicitly account for the fact that the program was an endogenous policy response to deteriorating labor market conditions for older workers in certain regions and sectors. The main results are: (i) REBP reduced the transition rate to jobs by 17%; (ii) accounting for endogenous policy adoption is important and quantitatively significant.     

Intertemporal market division:: A case of alternating monopoly

In this paper, we report on an equilibrium with market dominance that exists in a simple two-firm model that features neither entry barriers nor sophisticated punishment strategies. This equilibrium induces an intertemporal market division in which the two firms alternate as monopolists - despite the fact that the model also sustains a Cournot duopoly. Even when initially both firms are active in the market, the alternating monopoly reveals itself rather quickly. Moreover, it Pareto dominates the Cournot equilibrium - as it is close to the cartel outcome. Several examples of what well may be such alternating monopolies are presented.     

ESTEEM: Managing societal acceptance in new energy projects : A toolbox method for project managers

There is now a large literature dealing with the policy question of public participation in technical choice and technology assessment (TA). Files such as the mad cow crisis, genetically modified food, and the emerging nanotechnologies have been edified into a public problem, and have given place to a number of experiments and reviews about participatory arrangements. Much less attention has been devoted so far to the application of the TA framework to more local and limited projects-not yet and maybe never reaching the public problem status-and the management of their societal dimensions. Among them, new energy technology represents a very interesting field for investigation: many of the new energy enjoy a global positive public image whereas the local implementation of their implantation often raises societal questions and oppositions. This paper describes an original experiment conducted in the field of new energy technologies during which a participatory technology assessment inspired approach was applied to a number of individual and local projects. A framework methodology called ESTEEM was developed to facilitate such participatory process to take place, and it was tested and evaluated in 5 projects located in 5 different countries over Europe. A detailed discussion of the ESTEEM method and its application to one case study, a Carbon Sequestration project in The Netherlands, is provided. We show that a major question in the application in such participatory framework is to establish a reflective practice of project management based on situated and constructive interactions between project promoters and project stakeholders.     

The coevolution of firms and their knowledge environment: Insights from the pharmaceutical industry

What are the most effective learning strategies for firms given the characteristics of their knowledge environment? This paper addresses this question by documenting the major changes in the knowledge environment of the pharmaceutical industry, with a particular emphasis on the period since the emergence of biotechnology, and discussing the related changes in the learning strategies of established pharmaceutical firms. Both the historical analysis and a review of the empirical research on organizational learning and knowledge transfer reveal a strong emphasis of firms on external learning through interfirm collaborations and sourcing of external knowledge. This learning strategy seems to be driven by the speed, uncertainty, and dispersion of knowledge developments in the industry. Studying the connections between the knowledge environment and the effectiveness of organizational learning processes is important to understand organizational change and adaptation, and is an area of research that deserves further attention.     

A socio-technical framework for cyber-infrastructure design : Implication for Korean cyber-infrastructure vision

This study presents a practical case application of socio-technical framework to assess and predict the development of cyber-infrastructure (CI) in Korea. Applying a socio-technical system approach to CI, this paper attempts to gain a clear understanding of how CI will evolve and stabilize in the cyber environment. It investigates the complex interaction between social and technical aspects of CI by highlighting the co-evolving nature, diversity, and interface which constitute the next generation network environment. It describes the challenges in developing, deploying, and maintaining the diverse components of CI and provides a snapshot of Korea's current approach to supporting members in meeting this challenge. The purpose of this study is to provide insight into these challenges and opportunities by offering a socio-technical analysis of CI development involving the social dynamics and organizational, policy, management, and administration decisions inherent in the design and development of CI.     

Bridging the gap between technological possibilities and people:: Involving people in the early phases of technology development

Technology provides endless promising possibilities to support people's lives. In reality, it is not a matter of what is possible, but rather a matter of how and when technology will be integrated, accepted and adopted by people. However, conventionally within organizations the areas of technology development and market research are not closely related nor applied in the process of innovation and do not always share the same scope. In that sense there is a gap between the potential of technology and humankind's preferences.This paper discusses the current areas of technology development and market research in a business environment and proposes an integrated approach to bridge the gap between technology and people, in which people, rather than market sizes become central in the development of technology. In addition, it also describes how this approach of people-driven innovation is brought into practice through the development of early experience demonstrators. The core focus of this paper is on the processes and practices regarding innovation within an organization, rather than the adoption of innovation by users or the rate of the adoption of a marketed solution (Rogers, 1995 [E.M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, The Free Press, New York, 1995. [1]]).     

Water scarcity, social power and the production of an elite suburb: The political ecology of water in Matadepera, Catalonia

This article investigates the history of land and water transformations in Matadepera, a wealthy suburb of metropolitan Barcelona. Analysis is informed by theories of political ecology and methods of environmental history; although very relevant, these have received relatively little attention within ecological economics. Empirical material includes communications from the City Archives of Matadepera (1919-1979), 17 interviews with locals born between 1913 and 1958, and an exhaustive review of grey historical literature. Existing water histories of Barcelona and its outskirts portray a battle against natural water scarcity, hard won by heroic engineers and politicians acting for the good of the community. Our research in Matadepera tells a very different story. We reveal the production of a highly uneven landscape and waterscape through fierce political and power struggles. The evolution of Matadepera from a small rural village to an elite suburb was anything but spontaneous or peaceful. It was a socio-environmental project well intended by landowning elites and heavily fought by others. The struggle for the control of water went hand in hand with the land and political struggles that culminated - and were violently resolved - in the Spanish Civil War. The displacement of the economic and environmental costs of water use from few to many continues to this day and is constitutive of Matadepera's uneven and unsustainable landscape. By unravelling the relations of power that are inscribed in the urbanization of nature (Swyngedouw, 2004), we question the perceived wisdoms of contemporary water policy debates, particularly the notion of a natural scarcity that merits a technical or economic response. We argue that the water question is fundamentally a political question of environmental justice; it is about negotiating alternative visions of the future and deciding whose visions will be produced.     

Global financial crisis,corporate governance,and firm survival:: The Russian experience

Using a unique dataset obtained from large-scale panel enterprise surveys conducted in 2005 and 2009, we clarify the survival status of Russian industrial firms before and after the global financial crisis and empirically examine the determinants of firm survival. The estimation of the Cox proportional hazard model provided evidence that the independence of company’s governance bodies, their human resource abundance, and influence over corporate management are statistically significant factors affecting the survival probability of the surveyed firms. In particular, the board of directors and the audit committee are likely to play a vital role in reducing the potential exit risk. We also found that there is a significant difference in the viewpoints of economic logic for firm survival held by independent firms and group companies.     

The Delphi method as early warning: Linking global societal trends to future radicalization and terrorism in The Netherlands

A Delphi study was performed to answer the question: Which global societal trends relate to future radicalization and subsequent terrorism in the Netherlands? An inventory of two hundred global societal trends and a literature study of radicalization together served as briefing of the participants in the Delphi study. The first two rounds were conducted in anonymous writing. The third round was a face to face focus group meeting. In the first and second round participants scored the trends, adjusted their scores relative to others and provided arguments, and in the focus group meeting, themes were discussed in which the participants remained to have strong opposite views. This approach emphasizes divergence in opinion (‘dissensus’), as opposed to convergence (‘consensus’). Consensus seeking to us seems to be the dominant application of Delphi, but we emphasize the value of seeking dissensus. We hypothesize that in those cases where the opposite views that were discussed kept their ground, this Delphi study may have found early warnings of future radicalization.The essence of this paper is that it is possible, with limited effort, to get a handle on the complex and poorly defined subject of global societal trends influencing future radicalization. Application of the Dissensus Delphi method provided a selection of early warnings that may be looked into with future research.     

It matters where you go: Outward foreign direct investment and multinational employment growth at home

How does outward foreign direct investment (FDI) affect employment growth of the multinational corporations (MNCs) in the home country? Does the impact of outward investment differ by the level of development of the destination country of the FDI? Using a difference-in-difference approach, we assess the impact of starting to invest in less-advanced countries compared with investing in more-advanced countries. To obtain suitable control groups in each case, we use the propensity score method to select national firms that ex post did not take the investment decisions that we study even though ex ante they would have been equally likely to. We find that moving to less-advanced countries decreases a company's employment growth rate especially in the short run. On the other hand, moving to more-advanced countries does not consistently affect employment growth in any significant way. Including investment decisions of established multinationals in the estimation somewhat weakens but does not overturn this conclusion.     

Does financial liberalization improve the allocation of investment?: Micro-evidence from developing countries

Using firm level panel data from 12 developing countries we explore whether financial liberalization improves the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated. A summary index of the efficiency of investment allocation that measures whether investment funds are going to firms with a higher marginal return to capital is developed. We examine the relationship between this and various measures of financial liberalization and find that liberalization increases the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated. This holds after various robustness checks and is consistent with firm level evidence of a stronger association between investment and fundamentals after financial liberalization.     

Why is the corporate tax rate lower than the personal tax rate?: The role of new firms

In many OECD countries, statutory corporate tax rates are lower than personal income tax rates. This tax rate difference is often particularly large for small firms. The present paper argues that a reduction of the corporate tax rate below the personal tax rate is an optimal tax policy if there are problems of asymmetric information between investors and firms in the capital market. The reduction of the corporate tax rate below the personal tax rate encourages equity financing and thus mitigates the excessive use of debt financing induced by asymmetric information. Our main theoretical result stands in marked contrast to the traditional view of corporate taxation and corporate finance theory, according to which there is a tax disadvantage to equity financing. More recent empirical evidence on this issue, however, is in line with our result.     

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE: VIII. Continuum of change: Perspectives on physical or “hard” sciences

This article, the eighth in a series on the new millennium, describes timelines that provide the setting and context for basing very long forecasts. The longer and more complete the historic patterns of past and present, coupled with conceptual possibilities and prospective developments, the clearer the pattern of ongoing incremental change becomes. Likely patterns of continuing change literally “pop out” when assessing such chronologies. Feasibility, credibility and practicality of 1000 year forecasting typically is dismissed out-of-hand. To help dispel such mindsets, timelines covering wide-ranging natural science phenomena spanning thousands to billions of years are presented here. Depicting the coming and going of familiar natural science phenomena in this manner reveals how the future fate of the world we live in is predetermined. These very long horizons suggest potentials for projecting physical science possibilities a mere 1000 years into the future.     

Did colonization matter for growth?: An empirical exploration into the historical causes of Africa's underdevelopment

We investigate the impact of 20th-century European colonization on growth. We find that colonial heritage, as measured by the identity of the metropolitan ruler and by the degree of economic penetration, matters for the heterogeneity of growth performances in Africa. Colonial indicators are correlated with economic and sociopolitical variables that are commonly employed to explain growth and there are growth gains from decolonization. Colonial indicators also add significant explanatory power to worldwide growth regressions and are correlated with the Sub-Saharan Africa and the Latin America dummies.     

A systems approach to policy analysis and development planning: Construction sector in the Turkish 5-year development plans

In this study, we propose a new model for systems analysis ‘of’ policy and systems analysis ‘for’ policy with the example of construction sector in the Turkish 5-year development plans.Our proposed model—integrated development management model (IDMM)—is conceptually based on the principles of systems thinking and integrated management approach.We present and discuss the results of our work in which we extracted all construction-related policies and strategies from eight 5-year development plans and analyzed them using the IDMM. In the light of the analyses, we give several answers to the question: “Why did the development plans fail to meet their targets in Turkey?” We propose that any development plan has to have claritas-unitas-integritas-consonantia between the management levels (normative, strategic, and operational) and components (goals, structures, and behavior) of IDMM.The paper is the first work that brings the concepts of development planning and foresight together. In a complementary stance, the time of integrating foresight and development planning has come.