Dynamic cities and creative clusters

The author focuses on how urban policies and the clustering of creative industries has influenced urban outcomes. The set of creative industries include those with output protectable under some form of intellectual property law. More specifically, this sub-sector encompasses software, multimedia, video games, industrial design, fashion, publishing, and research and development. The cities that form the basis for the empirical investigations are those where policy-induced transitions have been most evident, including Boston; San Francisco; San Diego; Seattle; Austin; Washington, D.C.; Dublin (Ireland); Hong Kong (China); and Bangalore (India). The key research questions are: 1) What types of cities are creative? 2) What locational factors are essential? 3) What are the common urban policy initiatives used by creative cities? The author explores the importance of the external environment for innovation and places it in the larger context of national innovation systems. Based on a study of development in Boston and San Diego, he isolates the factors and policies that have contributed to the local clustering of particular creative industries. In both cities, universities have played a major role in catalyzing the local economy by generating cutting-edge research findings, proactively collaborating with industries, and supplying the needed human capital. In addition, these two cities benefited from the existence of anchor firms and active industry associations that promoted fruitful university-industry links. Many cities in East Asia are aspiring to become the creative hubs of the region. But their investments tend to be heavily biased toward infrastructure provision. Although this is necessary, the heavy emphasis on hardware can lead to underinvestment in developing the talents and skills needed for the emergence of creative industries in these cities.Public Health Promotion,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Decentralization,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Educational Technology and Distance Education,Agricultural Research

Impact of remote sensing upon the planning, management, and development of water resources

Principal water resources users were surveyed to determine the impact of remote data streams on hydrologic computer models. Analysis of responses demonstrated that: most water resources effort suitable to remote sensing inputs is conducted through federal agencies or through federally stimulated research; and, most hydrologic models suitable to remote sensing data are federally developed. Computer usage by major water resources users was analyzed to determine the trends of usage and costs for the principal hydrologic users/models. The laws and empirical relationships governing the growth of the data processing loads were described and applied to project the future data loads. Data loads for ERTS CCT image processing were computed and projected through the 1985 era

Easy Innovation and the Iron Cage: Best Practice, Benchmarking, Ranking, and the Management of Organizational Creativity

The use of what came to be known as best practices, benchmarking, and ranking, which took corporate America by storm in the 1980s as a method for managing innovation, has seeped into government and nonprofit organizations in the intervening years. In fact, as H. George Frederickson demonstrates in this Kettering Foundation occasional paper, these practices have proven to be counterproductive both in the business and the public sector. Frederickson suggests, instead, a more flexible, less directive, model he calls "sustained innovation." He offers abundant evidence that this model is more effective in producing organizational effectiveness

Review of Literature and Curricula in Smart Supply Chain & Transportation

This study provides a review of existing smart supply chain management (SCM) literature and current course offerings in order to identify unexplored implications of smart SCM. Specifically, the study focuses on curricula within the state of California to derive potential opportunities for the relevant practitioners in the Bay Area. In addition, the study further extends curriculum review to other well-recognized SCM programs around the U.S. By exploring current relevant course offerings from different academic institutions for higher education (i.e., universities), this research aims to deliver general ideas useful to knowledge practitioners in fields concerning SCM. Finally, the research illustrates a conceptual framework aimed at fostering familiarity with the necessary research topics for the evolving smart SCM

Investments in Higher Education and the Economic Performance of OECD Member Countries

Universities and academic research institutions play an important role in contributing to the economic growth of countries, mainly through the diffusion of scientific knowledge, new methods, and technologies. This study investigates the relationship between investments in higher education and the economic performance of developed countries. Cross-sectional data, relating to higher education, workforce composition, and macro-economic indicators, were analyzed. The empirical analysis was based on data gathered from international datasets: World Development Indicators (WDI) of the World Bank, OECD Statistics Portal, and UNSECO for the 30 OECD member states. The main research hypothesis was that a positive and significant linkage exists between investment in higher education and economic growth. The examination was carried out by employing two models. The first model (a two-stage model) assumed that an indirect link existed between higher education and economic growth. The instrumental indicator used in the analysis was the country’s labor force composition (specifically, the percentage of employees in scientific and engineering fields). The second model employed a multivariate regression model to directly test the relationship between higher education and growth indicators. The research findings show that higher education inputs translate into human capital outputs (a trained workforce in the computing, science, and engineering fields), and these transform back into the inputs that explain the economic performance of OECD countries. Smaller European countries, such as Finland, the Netherlands, and Denmark, are more efficient in translating their educational investments into a high-quality labor force. The two main activities of universities - teaching and research - were found to be connected to enhancing the per capita GDP of OECD countries. The research findings also support evidence from other studies that show decreasing returns to scale in education. The elasticity of per capita GDP with respect to R&D expenditure per student and the expenditure on teaching in research universities were found to be fairly large, with a constant elasticity of 0.78% and point elasticities (when expenditure on teaching is held constant) ranging from 0.04% (Turkey) to 0.84% (Sweden). Point elasticities for the majority of OECD countries were found to be at the 0.2%-0.5% level.

Dynamics of High-Technology Firms in the Silicon Valley

The pace of technological innovation since World War II is dramatically accelerating following the commercial exploitation of the Internet. Since the mid 90’s fiber optics capacity (infrastructure for transmission of information including voice and data) has incremented over one hundred times thanks to a new technology, dense wave division multiplexing, and Internet traffic has increased over 1.000 times. The dramatic advances in information technology provide excellent examples of the critical relevance of the knowledge in the development of competitive advantages. The Silicon Valley (SV) that about fifty years ago was an agricultural region became the center of dramatic technological and organizational transformations. In fact, most of the present high-tech companies did not exist twenty years ago. Venture capital contribution to the local economy is quite important not only due to the magnitude of the financial investment (venture investment in SV during 2000 surpassed 25.000 millions of dollars) but also because the extent and quality of networks (management teams, senior employees, customers, providers, etc.) that bring to emerging companies. How do new technologies develop? What is the role of private and public investment in the financing of R&D? Which are the most dynamical agents and how do they interact? How are new companies created and how do they evolve? The discussion of these questions is the focus of the current work.Technological development, R&D, networks

E-Learning in Postsecondary Education

Over the past decade postsecondary education has been moving increasingly from the class room to online. During the fall 2010 term 31 percent of U.S. college students took at least one online course. The primary reasons for the growth of e-learning in the nation\u27s colleges and universities include the desire of those institutions to generate new revenue streams, improve access, and offer students greater scheduling flexibility. Yet the growth of e-learning has been accompanied by a continuing debate about its effectiveness and by the recognition that a number of barriers impede its widespread adoption in higher education

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? Regional Labor Mobility of German University Graduates

In this study we trace university graduates’ labor mobility when entering the labor market after graduation. We examine to what extent such mobility is determined by regional factors of the university region, personal characteristics of graduates as well as their field of study. Our analysis is based on a large-scale dataset of labor market mobility of individuals who graduated from 36 German universities in 2007. Our results suggest that graduates are less likely to leave metropolises and that regional labor markets influence mobility. Further, field of study and individual willingness to be mobile, as indicated by prior mobility from school to university and mobility during the studies, impact mobility when entering the labor market. These results indicate that both regional and individual factors influence graduate mobility. Moreover, by applying a two-stage model approach we find that mobility is mediated by the probability to find regular employment.Regional Mobility, Regional Characteristics, University, Graduates, Employment, Labor Markets

An Overview and Examination of the Indian Services Sector

India’s service sector has grown rapidly since the 1990s. Domestic demand for services has increased as incomes have risen, triggering the expansion of industries such as banking, education, and telecommunications. Exports have also increased rapidly, led by information technology and business process outsourcing (IT-BPO). India’s ability to offer low-cost, high-quality IT-BPO services has made it a world leader in this industry. However, employment in services has not grown as quickly as output. The majority of India’s jobseekers are low-skilled, but demand for workers is growing fastest in higher-skill industries. The supply of highly-skilled workers has not kept pace with demand, causing wages to increase faster for these workers than for lower-skilled ones. India’s government has supported the growth of service industries through a mix of deregulation, liberalization, and incentive programs, such as the Software Technology Parks of India. Nevertheless, burdensome regulations, poor infrastructure, and foreign investment restrictions continue to affect service firms’ ability to do business. USITC analysis suggests that additional liberalization would lead to an increase in India’s imports of services