The political economy of European anti-trust and industrial policy

This paper discusses alternative political economic perspectives on competition (antitrust) and industrial policies (IP), in theory and in practice, while critically assessing recent European IP in this context. It develops a new framework for IP, which emphasises the sustainability of value and wealth creation at the firm, meso and supranational levels, and explores its implications for IP in general and European IP in particular. It views current EU policies as a step in the right direction, but argues that they need to pay more attention to the issue of economic sustainability, the link between corporate, public and supranational governance, and the impact that different power structures and hierarchies of agencies have on industrial policies for sustainable value and wealth creation. The limitations of self-monitoring and diversity suggest the need for an accountable supranational competition and regulatory policy organisation with a strong focus on economic sustainability.European Industrial Policy, Market Failure, Resource Creation, Economic Sustainability

Information technology for competitive advantage within logistics and supply chains: a review

This paper offers a systematic review of the literature on the use of information technology (IT) in logistics and supply chain management to achieve competitive advantage. While IT has revolutionized traditional logistics and supply chains to achieve numerous benefits such as increased efficiency and responsiveness, it is not still clear to what extend IT has contributed to competitive advantage within logistics and supply chains. This paper contributes to this debate by: (i) reporting the literature on the role of IT in achieving competitive advantage within logistics and supply chains based on the linkages between ‘adaptation’, ‘alignment’, and ‘agility’, (triple A’s) (Lee, 2004), and (ii) discussing managerial implications and identifying future research directions

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

The processes of innovation among rural manufacturing SMEs: externalities and beyond

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of LutonThis study explored the processes of innovation among innovative rural manufacturing SMEs by using the narratives of the owner/mangers of case study firms and other actors involved in the innovation process. This was consistent with the ontology of critical realism that was selected which entailed the use of case study method as a tool for data collection. This study makes a number of incremental rather than radical contributions to innovation theory and our understanding of innovation among rural Manufacturing SMEs. The results of this study shows the importance of opinions of owner/managers in the measurement of innovation considering that the majority were either unaware of the need to register their innovation and the lack of support organizations in rural areas who can advice SMEs on the need for patents and the registration process. Regarding the characteristics of innovation in rural areas, the results showed that rural innovative SMEs are likely to be relatively strong in innovations where effects of scale are not yet important but where they can make use of their flexibility and proximity to market demand. The results of this study showed that SMEs received ideas for their innovations from various sources located both within and outside the case study area. The firms then used different approaches to develop their innovations including internalised design and externalised manufacturing, externalised design and internalised manufacturing, and internalised both design and manufacturing. Lastly, rurality did not appear to constrain the processes of innovation since SMEs had developed strategies that enabled them to adapt and adjust to their rural environment in order to remain innovative

A system theoretical approach to the characteristics of a successful future innovation ecosystem

Doutoramento em Gestão IndustrialA presente dissertação examina a relação inovação-indivíduocontexto sob o ponto de vista da teoria de sistemas. O propósito do presente estudo é explorar a “performance” sustentada do ecossistema de inovação onde diversas realidades controversas surgem simultaneamente. A primeira parte da dissertação é uma análise conceptual da inovação, do indivíduo e do ambiente de inovação. A segunda parte considera o método da “Grounded Theory” e o material de investigação obtido das experiências de empreendedores de várias profissões. A investigação empírica da terceira parte explora as experiências relacionadas com inovação-indivíduo-contexto. Como resultado da análise comparativa e contínua dos resultados da investigação e de investigação anterior, um modelo ideal de Círculo Virtuoso de Inovação em Sistemas auto-organizados e autoprodutivos é estabelecido. Os resultados indicam que, apara além da parte visível e tangível da inovação, também a parte invisível e intangível é fundamental na “performance” sustentada da geração de inovação radical e incremental. Um ecossistema de inovação autónomo, que seja autoorganizado e auto-produtivo depende da capacidade intelectual e emocional dos indivíduos. Desviando-se de investigação anterior, o presente estudo descobre a capacidade emocional embebida nos indivíduos como pré-requisito para a inovação. O presente estudo indica que a capacidade humana para tolerar as inconveniências e a frustração, em conjunto com a capacidade para gerar energia cognitiva e emocional para o sistema são os mecanismos que suportam a auto-renovação dos sistemas. È com base nestas capacidades que a reconciliação das realidades controversas relacionadas com a inovação que o sistema é ao mesmo tempo produtivo e criativo e pode simultaneamente gerar inovação incremental e radical. Assim, a gestão permissiva, descentralizada, centrada na pessoa, produtora de energia e da base para o topo resulta na auto-renovação no sistema e a inovação.This thesis examines innovation-individual-context relation within the framework of systems theory. The purpose of this study is to explore the sustainable performance of innovation ecosystem where many controversial realities take place simultaneously. The first part of the thesis is a conceptual analysis on innovation, individual and innovation environment. The second part considers the qualitative Grounded Theory method and research material consisting from innovation experiences of creative and entrepreneurial forerunners of various professions. The empirical research in the third part explores innovation-individual-context related experiences. As the result of the continuous comparative analysis of the empirical research findings and previous research, an ideal model of Virtuous Innovation Circle in Selforganising and Self-productive Systems is established. The findings indicate that apart from the visible and hard side of the innovation ecosystem also the invisible and soft side is pivotal for sustainable performance in generation of incremental and radical innovation. An autonomous innovation ecosystem, which is selforganising and self-productive relies on individuals’ intellectual and emotional capacity. System (like individual, organisation, region or nation), successfully generating incremental and radical innovation, perceives holistically and, apart from being differentiated, utilises interaction in order to complement the specialized knowledge. Deviating from previous research this study discovered the emotional capacity embedded in individuals as a prerequisite for innovation. This study indicates that human capacity to tolerate inconveniences and frustration together with the capacity to generate cognitive and emotional energy for the system are the mechanisms behind innovation and systems’ selfrenewal. It is due to these capacities that the reconciliation of innovation related controversial realities in the system turns possible and the system can be at the same time both productive and creative and it can simultaneously generate both incremental and radical innovation. Hence, the permissive, decentralised, human-centric, energizing, and bottom up management (called management in autonomous innovation ecosystem) triggers both system’s self-renewal and innovation

Challenges associated with high prices of new cancer medicines : potential ways forward for CEE countries based on HTA principles

This presentation discusses the costs to health systems of cancer care