Drivers and Impacts of R&D Adoption on Transport and Logistics Services

Actually, technologies and applications in industries are changing via business restructuring, new business models, new knowledge and supply chains. So R&D is not focused primarily on manufacturing industry as it used to be, but on different kinds of industries as logistics and transport (TLS). Nevertheless, the characteristics of the TLS industry determine the introduction of specific R&D solutions accordingly to sectors operations. The objective of this paper is to describe the R&D opportunities in the TLS industry and how managers use them to make their businesses more innovative and efficient. Using the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) model the paper identifies the links between R&D adoption and innovation dynamics. Relating the findings, on the driver’s side there are three points that are worth mentioning: increasing market competition, the relationships of firms interacting with each other and the availability and quality of complementary assets such as employee skills and IT know-how. On the impacts’ side, firms advanced in terms of implementing R&D solutions are more likely to implement organizational changes. Finally, a set of recommendations on how to further improve the continuous innovation in the TLS industry is presented

A framework on information behaviour of SME managers for decision-making on emerging ICTs

The aim of this study is to explore the perceived information needs and information behaviours of manager of UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As technology advancement and innovation are changing rapidly affecting organisations in different ways, organization executives are introducing new technologies for their operations and business environment becomes more complex and dynamic, government introducing different policies to guide the use of these emerging ICTs. As a result, information becomes significant during adoption decision-making process for SME managers to make an inform decision. To achieve this aim, a framework is developed based on existing literature, using the technology organization environmental (TOE) model as the theoretical underpinning for empirical investigation on information behaviour of SME managers in this study. This study is qualitative in nature, and semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with twenty SME managers in the UK service sector. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Following Myers and Newman’s (2007) guidelines for qualitative interview and triangulation method were used to validate the conceptual framework and established the research rigour and quality. The research findings explained information behaviours of SME managers in the contexts of technology organisation environment as information behaviour triggered and perceived information needs during the adoption decision in SMEs. These findings provide further insight into ICT adoption in SMEs through information behaviours and highlighted the significant of sources of information and pre-information needed during the decision-making process. The research also contributes to theory in the information systems field by using relevant literature from information science field to explore information behaviours of SME managers. Future research can be done in other sectors of the economy to show more holistic behaviours of SME managers

Impact factors for mobile internet applications in the agri-food sectors

Mobile communication and the mobile Internet can provide important opportunities, economic advantages for enterprises end organisations and support their more efficient operating as they can be used anytime and anywhere. We can make their wide spread use, innovative effects and advantages economical if we consider the effect system of technologies and services. The technological, social and economical complex effect system puts a pressure on the spreading of business applications. The types of applicable equipment are increasing. According to social aspects there are four player groups: manufacturers, enterprises, customers and workers. The Internet technology and the Internet network have become essential communication tools in business processes recently. Using the Internet by means of mobile appliances increases the possibilities. By studying the business process the expenses, advantages, disadvantages can well be seen. Nowadays these applications are more and more successful in areas such as agriculture, different parts of the food industry, extension services, precision agriculture and logistics. It can be stated that the international and the Hungarian development tendencies of the mobile Internet, the RTD Programmes of EU help the wide-spread use of mobile services. The rapid development of the Hungarian domestic mobile market over the last years is the basis for the wide spread use of new broadband mobile services and applications. This system can contribute to the development of agriculture, enterprises and rural areas and can support production, commerce, services and product tracing. But for successful applications we have to consider the impact factors

Assessing regional digital competence: Digital futures and strategic planning implications

Understanding strategic decisions aimed at addressing regional economic issues is of increasing interest among scholars and policy makers today. Thus, studies that proffer effective strategies to address digital futures concerns from social and policy perspectives are timely. In light of this, this research uses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis tool to frame a regional strategy for digital futures to enhance place-specific digital connectivity and socio-economic progress. Focus group discussions and a structured questionnaire were conducted to examine a SWOT for a digital economy strategy in the Southern Downs Region in Queensland, Australia. The findings show that while the proposed regional strategies for digital futures are susceptible to internal and external forces, strategic planning makes them manageable. The study’s findings also reveal that adaptive strategic planning can help regulate the effects of internal and external factors that shape individual and organisational responses to digital transformation, and that these factors promote regional competitiveness

Knowledge Management, Innovation, and Productivity: A Firm Level Exploration Based on French Manufacturing CIS3 Data

In modern knowledge driven economies, firms are increasingly aware that individual and collective knowledge is a major factor of economic performance. The larger the firms and the stronger their connection with technology intensive industries, the more are they likely to set up knowledge management (KM) policies, such as promoting a culture of information and knowledge sharing (C), motivating employees and executives to remain with the firm (R), forging alliances and partnerships for knowledge acquisition (A), implementing written knowledge management rules (W). The French 1998-2000 Community Innovation Survey (CIS3) has surveyed the use of these four knowledge management policies for a representative sample of manufacturing firms. The micro econometric analysis of the survey tends to confirm that knowledge management indeed contributes significantly to firm innovative performance and to its productivity. The impacts of adoption of the four surveyed KM practices on firm innovative and productivity performance are not completely accounted by firm size, industry, research & development (R&D) efforts or other factors, but persist to a sizeable extent after controlling for all these factors.

Assessing the drivers of virtual knowledge management impact in European Firm’s performance : an exploratory analysis

E-Business is a phenomenon that has progressed over the past decades at record speed, with considerable promise and hype. It has been embraced with varying degrees of enthusiasm and impact by both large firms and Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). Parallel with its development, E-Business has attracted research interests, seen in a plethora of new modules, programmes, models and tools. Knowledge Management (KM) is one tool that seams to gain a more relevant role, especially as managing knowledge has become increasingly important to all companies. Appropriate KM practices within organisations can be seen as one of the prerequisites to the enhancement of continuous performance improvement in the interne-based context. Thus, our aim is to develop a conceptual framework related to KM practices in a virtual context and to identify the nature of the relationship existing in those knowledge-driven elements and performance achievements. This paper aims to bridge the gap between the KM and e-business performance-related literatures from the viewpoint of European firms by establishing a model tested in European companies. For this purpose, we used a structural equation modelling analysis. The results show that KM has a positive impact on the maximization of e-business performance and that some elements individually have a positive influence on e-business performance. As limitations of the study, we consider the need for more research into this field and the inclusion of news elements such as technological readiness and management support to KM initiatives. The present study advances knowledge on the nature of the relative importance of different components of Internet-based KM as drivers of e-business performance and reinforces its importance as an integrated e-business tool.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

La formación de docentes en TIC: aportaciones desde diferentes modelos de formación

Training the teaching staff in Information and Communication Technologies comes implicitly with the study of its different dimensions and principles, regarding the indications that have been pointed from a variety of studies and works. In our current society, it is clear that the significance of ICT to improve quality and educational performance is not exclusively determined by its presence, but also by the variety of transformations that involves not only using them as a way of consuming knowledge but also seeing them as tools to enrich, create and generate said knowledge. From this perspective, investment in professional development is more important than investment in resources associated with technology. ftis is an important aspect for incorporation of ITC, not considering only its use to do better things than we do without it, but to do things in a complete different manner. We present this article which describes a tour of some of the bases and models, analyzing the problematic of training in digital skills that teachers might face when they incorporate them into their teaching and professional practice.Hablar de la formación del profesorado en Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación, implica el estudio de diferentes dimensiones y principios, contemplando las indicaciones que han apuntado distintos estudios y trabajos. En la sociedad actual, es claro que la significación de las TIC para mejorar la calidad y el rendimiento educativo, no viene exclusivamente determinado por su presencia, sino también por diferentes transformaciones que implican pasar de utilizarlas únicamente como una forma de consumir conocimientos, a verlas como herramientas para enriquecerlos, crearlos y generarlos. Desde esta perspectiva, la inversión en desarrollo profesional es más importante que la inversión en recursos asociados a la tecnología, siendo unaspecto importantepara su incorporación, el noplantearse únicamente su utilización para hacer mejor las cosas que hacemos sin ellas, sino para hacer cosas completamente distintas. Desde esta óptica, planteamos el presente artículo en el que se describe un recorrido por algunas de las bases y modelos, analizando la problemática de la formación en las competencias digitales que debe poseer el profesorado a la hora de incorporarlas en su práctica docente y profesional