Actors' Heterogeneity in Innovation Networks

Several interpretations converge in defining innovation networks as formed by heterogeneous actors, mainly identified in universities, research centers, and business companies. While the issue of actors' heterogeneity has generated active debate in strategy and organization studies, there has been little discussion so far in exploring the role of this diversity in innovation networks.Drawn from previous literature, we identify six attributes of actors' heterogeneity which seem to matter for the development of collaborative innovation: goals, knowledge bases, capabilities and competences, perceptions, power and position, culture. This paper is aimed at pursuing issues in need of further investigation. In particular 1. how the interplay of diverse actors' attributes shapes the interaction process in the development of collaborative innovation; 2. if and how combinations of their attributes are more likely to generate certain consequences in interaction; and 3. the degree to which heterogeneity is preferable to homogeneity for the effectiveness of innovation networks. In a recursive relationship, we also call for more research on the mechanisms that lead actors' attributes to change as an effect of interaction as well as on the interaction capabilities actors apply to manage heterogeneity.     

Independent random matching

Random matching models with a continuum population are widely used in economics to study environments where agents interact in small coalitions. This paper provides foundations to such models. In particular, the paper establishes an existence result for random matchings that are universal in the sense that certain desirable properties are satisfied for any assignment of types to agents. The result applies to infinitely many types of agents, thus covering random matching models which are currently used in the literature without a foundation. Furthermore, the paper provides conditions guaranteeing uniqueness of random matching.     

Rejuvenating clusters with ‘sleeping anchors’: The case of nanoclusters

This article investigates how competition for network orchestration sustains high tech clusters rejuvenation by avoiding early lock-in and stimulating exploration. Based on evidences drawn from the comparison of the evolution of two nano-electronics clusters, i.e., Grenoble (France) and Catania (Italy) clusters that share the same anchor tenant firm, namely STMicroelectronics, this article infers that cluster rejuvenation comes from scientific and technological diversity, competition for orchestration, overlap amongst networks and the ability of sleeping anchor tenant organizations to renew actors and technologies. As soon as the process of specialization (asset specificity, network specificity and technology speciation) starts, competition for orchestration stimulates sleeping anchor tenant organizations to influence research avenues within the cluster, and shape new networks within and outside the cluster.     

Framing scrappage in Germany and the UK: from climate discourse to recession talk?

This paper highlights the distinctive discursive framing of transport policy in Germany and the UK. Using an analysis of the introduction of the ‘scrappage bonus’ in both countries, against the background of the financial crisis, we show how distinct nationally specific discourses and political cultures are expressed within these. The German government was an early adopter of the policy, but the UK government was relatively late in introducing its own scheme. While the German scrappage scheme was introduced officially as an environmental bonus, the UK scheme did not make any reference to environmental concerns. We argue that these differences are important in the context of a wider research aim, to identify nationally specific mobility regimes and to develop an understanding of different possible pathways towards more environmentally friendly transport futures.     

The Rise of Digital Financialisation: The Case of India

ABSTRACT

Traditional notions of financialisation require updating to study the reorganisation of finance around digital infrastructures. We introduce the concept of digital financialisation, defined as the often-coerced merging of two hitherto separate aspects of citizens’ lives – interactions using digital technologies and financial transactions – into a new hybrid realm. This realm is undergirded by an infrastructure that harvests citizens’ data, which companies can monetise and governments can use for political surveillance. In developing countries, the state plays a key role in creating surveillance infrastructures, often using coercive means in the name of financial inclusion, as the demonetisation and Aadhaar projects in India show. Unlike the industry-finance conflict in ‘analogue’ financialisation, digital financialisation involves domestic and cross-border conflicts between tech and finance companies for control of the hybrid realm. The state mediates these conflicts. In India, it deploys a narrative of technocultural nationalism to cultivate its domestic political constituencies and downplay its reliance on foreign technology.     

East-west intra-industry trade dynamics

Conclusions Trade liberalization, integration and catching-up with the developed countries are often associated with an increase in intra-industry trade. We showed in the literature survey that the reduction of trade barriers is associated with the growth of intra-industry trade. We currently observe that the trade of the selected EU countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands) with the CEECs (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) follows this pattern as well. However, the increase of intra-industry trade is not uniform, but reflects different patterns of integration and progress of industrial restructuring.     

Measuring the impact of accounting journals using Google Scholar and the g-index

The UK's proposed Research Excellence Framework promotes a move towards citation analysis for assessing research performance. However, for business disciplines, journal rankings are likely to remain an important aid in evaluating research quality. The accounting literature includes many journal rankings and citation studies, however there has been little coverage of recent advances in these areas. This study explores approaches to assessing the impact of accounting journals with a focus on quantitative measures as a complement to peer-review-based evaluation. New data sources and techniques for citation studies are reviewed, and the g-index is selected for further analysis. The g-index was developed by Professor Leo Egghe in 2006 as an improvement on the h-index. Like the h-index, the g-index represents a relationship between papers published and the level of citations they receive, but the g-index is more sensitive to highly cited paper. To apply the g-index to accounting journals, the study first combines eight published journals rankings to produce a list of 34 highly-regarded titles. Citation data are then gathered from Google Scholar and used to calculate g-index scores as the basis of a new ranking. Google Scholar is found to have broader coverage of accounting citations than Scopus or the Web of Science databases, but requires cleaning to remove duplicate entries. The use of the g-index for ranking journals is found to be a useful innovation in citation analysis, allowing a more robust assessment of the impact of journals.     

Migration,Unemployment and Trade

Using an oligopoly model of trade with asymmetric costs, we study the individual and world welfare implications of a hub and spoke trade agreement where the hub country is more efficient than spoke countries. Under a hub and spoke trade regime, the hub country can benefit at the expense of the spokes relative to free trade. Furthermore, if the hub is sufficiently efficient compared to the spokes, such a regime can yield higher global welfare than free trade. Preferential treatment of the efficient hub country in its export markets improves world welfare because it helps allocate a larger share of the world’s output to a low cost location.     

Two paths of risk regulation: the concurrence of scientific and sociocultural decision-making in the European law of agricultural genetic engineering

Future hazards which may result from genetically engineered plants can currently only be anticipated. Therefore, the handling of the potential risks is becoming a crucial political and legal question. The following article describes the differing national regulatory approaches in Europe: an economic, a scientific, and a sociopolitical approach pre-existed the European Union’s deliberate release Directive, which itself follows a primarily science-based approach. The latter is based on objective technological assessments of individual cases. At the same time, however, the Directive contains elements of a sociocultural approach, which is open to value-based judgments and thus, necessarily takes a subjective, general assessment of the use of genetically modified organisms. As a result, the European law of Agricultural Genetic Engineering provides two paths of risk regulation in parallel.     

Business School Partnerships for Globalization

International partnerships are an essential tool to enable business schools to internationalize their activities. They can lead to improved research, better more internationally relevant teaching, provide staff with an international perspective, and help prepare students for careers in global business. Using case studies of four of Durham University Business School's main partnerships, the article identifies the motivations for forming partnerships, examines some of the practical management issues associated with partnership working in higher education, and details the many benefits that can be derived from such arrangements.