An assessment of science parks: Towards a better understanding of their role in the diffusion of technological knowledge

This paper examines the role of university science parks in fostering interorganizational technology transfers and technological development. We first try to contrast the development of science parks with the theoretical and empirical findings from scholarly work in the area of the management of technology. This theoretical context allows us to interpret and to discuss empirical data collected from Belgian and Dutch science park firms. The data collection mainly focused on the interactions of park-based firms with their external R&D environment. This analysis leads to two important findings: (1) the level of R&D activity at the tenants is rather moderate for most of the parks studied, and (2) the tension between 'regionalism' and 'internationalism' in contemporary R&D management.
In the wake of this second finding, arguments are presented to complement and even to change the focus from the 'miniature' R&D network which might develop on university science parks toward the 'R&D community' network holding together researchers working on a particular, interrelated set of scientific and technological problems wherever they may be located around the globe. Moreover, it is argued that a unified theory on the emergence and the development of new technologies is badly needed. Only if the dynamics underlying the development of a new technology are unravelled and better understood can technology policies, such as the ones involving the creation of science parks, be targeted more effectively.     

Ceos' cognitive maps and the scope of the organization

In this paper, CEOs are considered as ‘cognizers’ charged with integrating views in the top management team; a role which should require high cognitive complexity especially in diversified multinational corporations. A methodology for studying top managers' cognitive complexity is described and then applied to a sample of 26 CEOs. The CEOs' cognitive maps of the structure and of the dynamics of their industry are analyzed in terms of their degree of complexity, in relation to the breadth of the business portfolio of the firm, its geographic scope and the links the firm has with foreign parents. The results of this exploratory test generally confirm the principle of requisite cognitive complexity, and reveal a new set of more precise hypotheses linking particular dimensions of the scope of the firm with particular dimensions of CEOs' cognitive complexity.     

Sweetpotato—Biotechnology in different guises on a broad range of scales

Orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes offer the promise of addressing a serious nutritional deficiency in African diets: chronic Vitamin A deficiency, which can cause blindness in children and many complications in adults. Although the official public health policy in Mozambique emphasizes meeting this deficiency through Vitamin A capsules, a group of scientists, mostly women, is championing the cultivation of orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes as an alternative. Not only do the potatoes address the vitamin deficiency; they provide culturally appropriate starchy nutrition and an opportunity to market any surplus the household produces. Creative applications for the powdered sweetpotato, such as in flour for bread, have been developed. Plant tissue culture can support this movement by providing disease-free planting material, making high-yielding, disease-free cultivars more broadly available. Currently, NGOs are purchasing the plantlets on behalf of poor farmers, but eventually, plant tissue culture could become a complementary business in a growing agriculture-based economy, providing rural livelihoods in one of the world's poorest countries. The distributional consequences of the technology of plant tissue culture thus depend on its place in a network of farmer empowerment and rural development as well as on its technical characteristics.     

Feature-weighted categorized play across symmetric games

Experimental Economics - Experimental game theory studies the behavior of agents who face a stream of one-shot games as a form of learning. Most literature focuses on a single recurring identical...     

解读资产管理公司的成功要素

在未来资产管理行业的竞争中,强大的品牌、有效的渠道、丰富的产品组合和深度的客户细分将成为关键的成功要素。个人用户的发展对于资产管理公司具有重要的意义。在中国,随着商业银行的进入,资产管理的行业格局将发生巨大的变化。对于独立的资产管理公司,在品牌和渠道处于弱势的情况下,如何通过产品管理、渠道建设和品牌建设提升自身的竞争实力至关重要;而对于商业银行,尽管具有品牌和渠道的天然优势,但只有能够提供有竞争力的产品才可以满足客户的需求,同时商业银行在拥有自身产品的情况下是否仍然代为销售竞争性产品也需要进行仔细衡量,从而在满足客户多样化需求和实现自身利益最大化中找到最佳平衡点。     

Loafing in the 21 century: Enhanced opportunities—and remedies—for withholding job effort in the new workplace

The electronic workplace, a greater emphasis on knowledge work and teams, and the increased relevance of managing impressions of work performance are among factors that relate to higher levels of withholding effort among problem employees in the 21^st century. This article considers these three factors in the context of dominant organizational forms—low-cost operators, global competitor corporations, and high-involvement firms—and how each can lead to lower on-the-job effort. Remedies are offered for new forms of withholding effort such as cyberloafing, as well as hiding lack of effort in virtual teams and through impression management. In addition, a different way of considering the problem of lower job effort is proposed through examination of how a work ethic and a leisure ethic can be synthesized to enhance organizational creativity, innovation, and performance.