Technology transfer from government laboratories to industry: Canadian experience in the communications sector*

ABSTRACT Successful innovation is a complex process. It involves a multitude of factors usually coming together over relatively long periods of time. Neither governments nor industry can realistically aspire to manage all aspects of it. Although each case of technology development and its subsequent exploitation has its own unique set of variables, shaped by the nature of technology being developed, the mandates of the research organization and the technical and commercial competence of the recipient, there are common factors which can be identified as having Important bearings on the level of innovation.     

ADOPTING JAPANESE-STYLE MANUFACTURING METHODS: A TALE OF TWO (UK) FACTORIES*

Japanese manufacturing methods such as just-in-time production and total quality control are serving as a model of manufacturing organization which many UK manufacturers are currently emulating. This article describes the implementation of just-in-time production and its supporting practices in two factories owned by the same company. Empirical evidence demonstrates a profoundly political dimension to these innovations, requiring a significant rewriting of organizations’ political and cultural maps.     

Inter-firm diffusion of process innovations

This paper introduces a model of the diffusion of process innovations. It predicts that the inter- firm diffusion curve, showing the proportion of firms having adopted a given innovation, will follow either a cumulative normal time path for major and technically complex innovations or a cumulative lognormal time path for simpler and less expensive innovations. This prediction is tested, with satisfactory results, against data on the diffusion of various innovations in the U.K. The model also provides a limited explanation of why some firms adopt faster than others and identifies a number of factors which will determine the aggregate speed of diffusion.     

Hybridized professional groups and institutional work: COSO and the rise of enterprise risk management

The rise of risk management represents one of the major organizational shifts of the past decade. This article examines the emergence and diffusion of the dominant standard in the field, the Enterprise Risk Management – Integrated Framework, first published by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations in 2004. Drawing on a range of interviews with key stakeholders and an analysis of secondary materials, we find evidence of numerous forms of institutional work including theorizing, rhetorical appeals, mythologizing, constructing normative networks and educating. The diaspora of associated entities provided a key platform for advocating and promoting the ERM technology and provided a stable and influential network of support. Our analysis suggests that, as a large, multi-faceted hybridized professional group, COSO was able to bridge conventional diffusion categories of disruption, creation and maintenance. We argue that the notion of institutional work offers a useful lens for examining the diffusion of innovations in accounting research.     

Research collaboration and behavioural additionality: A New Zealand case study

Generating the greatest benefit from public research programmes is a major aim for industry managers and policy administrators alike. However, how to measure whether benefit has occurred createsf a considerable dilemma for managers and policy-makers. One approach centres upon the concept of ‘additionality’ or ‘what difference the policy has made’. Traditional ‘input additionality’ measures of subsequent research and development activity, for example, neither incorporate all impacts nor give adequate signals about adequate signals about aspects of ‘output additionality’, such as the impact on increased competitiveness at the level of the firm, or national competitiveness, the ultimate goal for the majority of research policies. An intermediate form of impact, ‘behavioural additionality’, centred upon changes in a firm's subsequent managerial behaviour, is considered to provide an alternative, yet compelling perspective on the impact of public support on the conduct of research. This study outlines empirical eveidence found for the various forms of additionality in a New Zealand collaborative research programme. It discusses how managers and policy administrators can exploit the occrrence of behavioural additionality to maximize the impact of a research policy, on the basis that modified behaviour is likely to strengthen a policy' latent abilityto influence the creation of output additionality. In such circumstances, the study suggests that managers and policy-makers should be identifying those interventions that lead to sustained improvements in mangerial practice, and in competitiveness, and should be managing their diffusion within firms and throughout industries.     

Measuring up: examining the potential for voluntary sector performance measurement to improve public service delivery

This article explores the impact of recent trends towards privatism through a study of neighbourhood governance in Baltimore and Bristol and considers its implications for the big society in the UK. The self-help ideology of the big society has been prevalent in Baltimore for many years and the city's experience highlights profound difficulties in substituting volunteering for government-led revitalization. The article concludes that the Baltimore experience is a warning to British policy-makers, posing a major dilemma.     

Attitudes and behaviours of key account managers: Are they really any different to senior sales professionals?

This study investigates the range of attitudes and behaviours exhibited by Key Account Managers (KAMs) in their roles as customer relationship managers. Specifically, we test whether KAMs exhibit different behaviours and attitudes towards relationship management compared to other sales professionals based on a range of assumptions currently theorized but untested in the Key Account Management (KAM) literature. Utilizing the existing theoretical models of a KAM role we identify six major areas of relational behaviour assumed in the literature to separate the KAM from the sales professional. Drawing on a cross sectional quantitative study of 10 organizations and 409 key account managers, sales managers, and senior sales executives we explore goal orientation, planning, customer embeddedness, strategic prioritization, adaptability and internal management behaviours of our groups and find that, in certain managerial tasks, KAMs do indeed exhibit many of the different behaviours and attitudes predicted in the literature. However, in many customer-facing, goal orientated and revenue generating activities, contrary to expectations, they display similar attitudes and behaviours to those in senior sales roles. This challenges the way that the KAM role has previously been conceptualized. Our findings raise a potential issue for senior managers, since KAMs' unexpectedly short term orientation may lead to insufficient consideration of the strategic consequences of their decisions for these key customer relationships.     

Managing internal stakeholders’ views of corporate reputation

The aims of this paper are to determine what constitutes internal reputation from the perspectives of both senior managers and employees and to use this understanding to create and assess measures of internal reputation. We also hypothesise and test the relationships between the views of each group and performance, using data from a survey of auditing firms. Manager views of reputation are found to co-vary with performance and to have a significant influence over employee views of reputation. We use these findings to illustrate how employee views of reputation can be managed.     

Survey of Recent Developments

Outgoing Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's second-term record is creditable, measured against the targets he set himself in 2010, but deficient in key areas: economic reform, infrastructure investment, and anti-corruption. Indonesia's 2009–14 parliament has been active in economic policymaking, and will leave as its legacy a raft of protectionist legislation. Both presidential candidates, Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo and Prabowo Subianto, have appealed to nationalism in their campaigns, calling for Indonesia to assert its sovereignty and increase its self-sufficiency, but Jokowi's economic platform is more moderate and economically literate than Prabowo's. The incoming president will inherit an economy that continues to slow. Growth is now not expected to approach 6% until 2015 at the earliest. Having engineered a reduction in the current account deficit, Indonesian policymakers now face the more difficult problem of structural fiscal adjustment. Energy subsidies are the most immediate problem, but fiscal reform more generally will emerge as an overriding and unpleasant imperative for whoever wins the presidential election on 9 July. Unless difficult fiscal policy measures are taken, Indonesia will face major trade-offs between deficit control and investment in social programs and economic infrastructure. The new president will struggle to restrict the deficit to the cap of 3% of GDP: a balanced budget will likely not be feasible for several years. He will need to increase the ratio of revenue to GDP and eliminate fuel subsidies—through a more systematic approach than the infrequent price increases of the past. He will need to choose carefully between competing expenditure priorities, such as infrastructure and defence. The new president would also be well advised to tread cautiously in implementing the legal mandates he will inherit, and to work with parliament to avoid further and unwind current earmarking of public expenditure.     

THE EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: TESTING THE NON‐LINEAR HYPOTHESIS

Theoretical models suggest a non‐linear relationship between government size and long‐run economic growth. However, testing this hypothesis empirically in cross‐country studies is complicated by the endogeneity of government spending and the accurate identification of inflexion points. This paper examines the non‐linear hypothesis by incorporating threshold analysis in a cross‐country growth regression. The methodology utilizes a sample‐splitting framework and follows an objective strategy for identifying and testing changes in the slope. The results provide evidence in support of the non‐linear hypothesis for a broad panel of countries.