“Should we stay or should we go now?”:Dis/Engaging with emerging technosciences

In this paper we focus on a special feature of science and technology studies: the trajectories of our engagement with ‘emerging technosciences’. Many of us entertain close links to a particular group of scientists; our scholarly careers and identities build around thematic specialisations, trans-field collaborations and convivialities. But more often than not, such engagement does not last a whole career. With every new technoscientific hype, scholars are pressed to ‘move on’, to disengage from one field and re-engage with another. It thus seems warranted to explicitly reflect on the temporal patterns of dis/engagement and to look at possible ramifications for individuals, collectives, and the innovation system at large. To inform such reflection, we opted for a mixed-methods approach, tracing patterns and moments of dis/engagement across various disciplines based on scientometric analysis, individual archaeologies of engagement, a qualitative survey, and a focused discussion among fellow scholars from the social sciences and humanities as well as the sciences. Our analysis brings distinct dis/engagement patterns to the fore, relating to disciplinary affiliations as well as career stages. In our conclusion, we discuss the relevance of these findings for science and technology studies scholars and technoscientists as well as for contemporary innovation regimes more generally

Mainstreaming climate adaptation into water management in the Netherlands: The governance of the Dutch Delta Program

Whereas the literature on adaptation is rich in detail on impacts, vulnerability and limits to adaptation, less is known about governance systems that facilitate adaptation in practice. This paper offers preliminary conclusions on the constraints and opportunities for mainstreaming adaptation to climate change into water management in the Netherlands. We use the term mainstreaming for the integration of adaptation actions into ongoing sectoral planning to reduce climate vulnerability. In particular we look at the integration of climate adaptation and water management, currently underway in the implementation of the Dutch Delta Program. The Delta Program is an integral policy program executed by the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. The paper analyses the current implementation of the Delta program in the Netherlands according to the dimensions of the Earth System Governance framework: Architecture, Agents, Adaptiveness, Accountability, Allocation and Knowledge. The analysis suggests that all five governance dimensions are considered to capitalise on opportunities for successfully planning and implementing the Delta Program and its subprograms. Architecture gets most attention at present, but the implementation depends on the subprograms and varies over time. Program bodies generally bring together government agencies from different levels of government (national, provincial, municipal and water boards). A challenge for the new emerging program bodies is to move towards legitimate, accountable ánd adaptive governance. The program so far has little attention for coalitions of government actors and non-government actors or conferring accountability to stakeholders. One of the aims of the Delta Program is innovation of water management. At present science has few strategies analysed or tested to support this innovation. Typical advice includes encouraging innovation through a rich variety of experiments and transition approaches that probe possible directions. Although the Delta Act provides in setting up experiments, financial support is conditional on co-financing and so far subprograms do not plan for such experiments. The fragmented implementation of the delta program could be turned into advantage by recognising different subprograms as a set of experiments, from which actors can learn. The analysis suggests more attention could be given to experiments that test and debate new ideas through collaboration between recognised actors from civil society, policy and science. Promising options for pilots could be the integration of agro-environmental land use systems that regulate regional climate impacts on water systems with new technologies, organisational responsibilities and financial instruments. Here governance faces creating flexible financial instruments that facilitate benefit- and burden-sharing, social learning and that support potentially better-adapted new strategies rather than compensate for climate impacts on existing activities. A challenge remains how to scale up regional pilot results to what is required for long-term national safet

The link between foreign institutional owners and multinational enterprises’ environmental outcomes

Many institutional investors claim to be leaders in their commitment to sustainability, yet their real impact is undetermined. We look at the relationship between the presence of foreign institutional owners and the firm’s environmental outcomes in terms of performance and innovation. We argue that foreign institutional owners seek to mitigate their exposure to reputational risks by encouraging their investee firms to move towards better environmental performance. However, these owners are less likely to engage in long-term investments derived from environmental innovations. We examine these paradoxical motivations in the context of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the chemical industry across 33 countries in emerging and developed markets and further explore how these investee firms’ international diversification affects these relationships. Our findings contribute to international corporate governance and sustainability research by uncovering that, contrary to institutional owners’ popular claims, foreign institutional owners have a positive effect on their investees’ environmental performance, but their influence is not statistically significant on environmental innovation. Specifically, the influence of foreign institutional owners on environmental performance is strong for MNEs with a low level of international diversification and marginal for those with a higher level of internationalization; meanwhile, domestic institutional owners are committed to advancing both environmental performance and innovation in their MNE investees. In sum, we show that environmental concerns are still quite localized.The University of Granada authors recognize the partial funding from PID2019-106725GB-I00 and PID2019-107767GA-I00 research grants (Spanish State Research Agency—Innovation and Science Min istry, 10.13039/501100011033), and the A-SEJ-291-UGR18 grant (Regional Government of Andalucia, European FEDER funds, and University of Granada)

Corporate Entrepreneurship of Emerging Market Firms: current research and future directions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) of emerging market firms (EMFs) and provide direction for future research on the topic. Design/methodology/approach – The authors specifically review the recent literature between the years 2000 and 2019 on CE with the keywords “corporate entrepreneurship,” “emerging economies” and “emerging countries” published in the Australian Business Deans Council list journals. The authors review the existing literature about CE in emerging markets, summarize current achievements and present an agenda for future research. Findings – Based on the review, the authors categorized the macro and micro contexts of CE and summarized the current articles on CE in emerging markets within each macro and micro context. The authors conclude that despite the abundance of research on CE that investigates the three prongs of CE in terms of innovation, strategic renewal and new venturing in developed market contexts, there is a scarcity of literature that focuses on CE in emerging markets from a holistic perspective. Originality/value – While there is an abundance of literature review on CE in general in terms of the drivers of the construct, the contexts contributing to it and the outcomes, the reviews are lacking about CE specifically within the context of emerging markets. Emerging markets vary from developed markets institutionally, economically, culturally, socially and technologically. However, the questions of how these differences impact the CE activities, as it relates to innovation, venturing and strategic renewal in EMFs, and how these differences provide incentives or hinder the activities that contribute to CE remain mostly unanswered. This paper reviewed the research on CE and emerging market contexts from 2000 to present. It targets to provide a better understanding of the current achievement on this topic and what to be done in the future

Design and radical innovation: a strategic perspective based upon a comparative case study between emergent and traditional industries in Portugal

The survival challenge faced by the Portuguese companies nowadays has promoted Innovation as the main management strategy to be applied. This research reveals the importance and the role of Design as the basic and integrative tool for the success of this strategy, focused on Radical or Breakthrough Innovation. The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of a conceptual model developed from a comparative case study research, made among Portuguese companies from the emergent sectors connected to new technologies and Portuguese companies from the traditional sectors. That work allowed the definition of the Success Critical Factors to consider for the development of radical new products: integrating new technologies (Science Knowledge), market sensibility (Marketing Knowledge), forecasting new needs or user interfaces and disruptive creativity (Design Knowledge)

The Control Fallacy: Why OA Out-Innovates the Alternative

This article examines the relationship between Open Access to the scholarly literature and innovation. It traces the ideas of "end to end" network principles in the Internet and the World Wide Web and applies them to the scholarly biomedical literature. And the article argues for the importance of relieving not just price barriers but permission barriers

China's absorptive State: research, innovation and the prospects for China-UK collaboration

China's innovation system is advancing so rapidly in multiple directions that the UK needs to develop a more ambitious and tailored strategy, able to maximise opportunities and minimise risks across the diversity of its innovation links to China. For the UK, the choice is not whether to engage more deeply with the Chinese system, but how. This report analyses the policies, prospects and dilemmas for Chinese research and innovation over the next decade. It is designed to inform a more strategic approach to supporting China-UK collaboration