Industrial districts as organizational environments: resources, networks and structures

The paper combines economic and sociological perspectives on organizations in order to gain a better understanding of the forces shaping the structures of industrial districts (IDs) and the organizations of which they are constituted. To effect the combination , the resource based view (RBV) and resource dependency theory are combined to explain the evolution of different industry structures. The paper thus extends work by Toms and Filatotchev by spatializing consideration of resource distribution and resource dependence. The paper has important implications for conventional interpretations in the fields of business and organizational history and for the main areas of theory hitherto considered separately, particularly the Chandlerian model of corporate hierarchy as contrasted with the alternative of clusters of small firms coordinated by networks

Industrial districts as organizational environments: resources, networks and structures

The paper combines economic and sociological perspectives on organizations in order to gain a better understanding of the forces shaping the structures of industrial districts (IDs) and the organizations of which they are constituted. To effect the combination , the resource based view (RBV) and resource dependency theory are combined to explain the evolution of different industry structures. The paper thus extends work by Toms and Filatotchev by spatializing consideration of resource distribution and resource dependence. The paper has important implications for conventional interpretations in the fields of business and organizational history and for the main areas of theory hitherto considered separately, particularly the Chandlerian model of corporate hierarchy as contrasted with the alternative of clusters of small firms coordinated by networks.clustering; dynamics; resource-based views; resource dependency

Clusters and Knowledge Local Buzz, Global Pipelines and the Process of Knowledge Creation

The paper is concerned with spatial clustering of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in various sorts of interactive learning processes. It questions the merit of the prevailing explanatory model where the realm of tacit knowledge transfer is confined to local milieus whereas codified knowledge may roam the globe almost frictionless. When doing so the paper highlights the conditions under which both tacit and codified knowledge can be exchanged locally and globally. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, the learning processes taking place among actors embedded in a community by just being there - dubbed buzz - and, on the other, the knowledge attained by investing in building channels of communication - called pipelines - to selected providers located outside the local milieu. It is argued, that the co-existence of high levels of buzz and many pipelines may provide firms located in outward looking and lively clusters with a string of particular advantages not available to outsiders. Finally, some prescriptive elements, stemming from the argument, are identified.knowledge creation, clusters, buzz, pipelines, absorptive capacity

Forth Industrial Revolution (4 IR) : digital disruption of cyber-physical systems

Article focus of the disruptive character of technological innovations brought by Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), withits unprecedented scale and scope, and exponential speed of incoming innovations, described from the point view of 'unintended consequences' (cross cutting impact of disruptive technologies across many sectors and aspects of human life). With integration of technology innovations emerging in number of fields including advanced robotics, pervasive computing, artificial intelligence, nano-and bio-technologies, additive and smart manufacturing, Forth Industrial Revolution introduce new ways in which technology becomes embedded not only within the society, economy and culture, but also within human body and mind (described by integration of technologies, collectively referred to as cyber-physical systems). At the forefront of digital transformation, based on cyber physical systems, stands Industry 4.0, referring to recent technological advances, where internet and supporting technologies (embedded systems) are serving as framework to integrate physical objects, human actors, intelligent machines, production lines and processes across organizational boundaries to form new kind of intelligent, networked value chain, called smart factory. Article presents broader context of 'disruptive changes (innovations)' accompanying 4IR, that embrace both economical perspective of 'broaderrestructuring' of modern economy and society (described in second part of the article as transition from second to third and forth industrial revolution), and technological perspective of computer and informational science with advances in pervasive computing, algorithms and artificial intelligence (described in third part of article with different stages of web development : web 1.0, web 2.0, web 3.0, web 4.0). What's more important, article presents hardly ever described in literature, psychological and philosophical perspective, more or less subtle reconfiguration made under the influence of these technologies, determining physical (body), psychological (mind) and philosophical aspect of human existence (the very idea of what it means to be the human), fully depicted in the conclusion of the article. The core element (novelty) is the attempt to bring full understanding and acknowledgment of disruptive innovations', that "change not only of the what and the how things are done, but also the who we are", moving beyond economical or technological perspective, to embrace also psychological and philosophical one

What Role do Ethnic Enclaves Play in Municipal Agenda Setting: An Exploratory Case Study Analysis of Indo-Canadian and Indigenous Communities in Abbotsford, B.C. and Saskatoon Saskatchewan

The pluralistic or competitive nature of policy problem definition in Canada involves the power to frame the problem and gain the attention of the public, resulting in setting government’s agenda. The collective action problem takes on an alternate meaning when looking through the lens of a Canadian multicultural policy. This thesis identifies where an ethnic enclave’s interests are highlighted at the municipal level. Using communication infrastructure theory as a guide, the conceptual framework elements examine the determinants that constrain municipal agenda setting, the necessary conditions that facilitate it, and the community structures of policy networks that shape municipal agendas. I collected data by interviewing community participants in two Canadian cities, Saskatoon Saskatchewan, and Abbotsford British Columbia. Analysis in the interview process went through two levels of coding using NVIVO. The results show that agenda setting occurs both through formal and informal channels that revolve around prior relationships. This thesis primarily addresses issues of interest to public policy analysts and those in bureaucracy charged with developing services and programs at the municipal level

Financial development in the SADC: growth and cross-country spatial spill-over effects

This study was prompted by the prevailing imbalance in financial development across SADC countries, which is not consistent with the linkages and interconnectedness of financial systems of these economies. South Africa is the most financially developed country in Africa, yet it is surrounded by economies with relatively small and underdeveloped financial systems, contrary to the spatial proximity theory in finance. The study performed a number of empirical estimations in respect of the spatiality of financial development, motivated by the intention to assess the growth and spatial spill-over effects of financial development in SADC. The study provides new information in spatial spill-over dynamics of financial development, which could inform policy development particularly in view of the on-going financial integration in the SADC region. The study also contributes to regional economic development in SADC from a finance perspective. The analysis was performed using annual data for all the 15 SADC countries, spanning for the period 1985 to 2014. Using the Generalised Method of Moments approach, the study finds that financial development does not support economic growth in SADC. Financial reforms were found to be insufficient to drive growth. A bi-directional causality between financial development and economic growth was established with causality being strong when flowing from economic growth to financial development. The extended Aghion, Howitt and Mayer-Foulkes Model, estimated by an Autoregressive Distributive Lag approach, established that financial innovation has a positive relation to economic growth in SADC, particularly in the long-run. There is no causality, in either direction, between financial innovation and economic growth in both the short and long-run. The Spatial Durbin Model reveals a presence of positive spatial effects on financial development in the region and that proximity to South Africa yields consistent effects of spatial externality in money markets and inconsistent spatial externality in credit markets. The monetary union has no influence on spatial dynamics of financial development in SADC. The generalised impulse response analysis of a Bayesian VAR model indicate that shocks in South Africa’s financial sector has positive, but constrained and in some cases weak, financial spill-over effects on both economic growth and financial development of other SADC countries. The study established, using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, a high level of financial market concentration for SADC, cantered in South Africa, and a fair distribution when South Africa is excluded. Dynamic panel models established that financial market concentration reduces financial development in SADC. South Africa’s financial development has mixed and opposing effects on financial market concentration in SADC. The findings also show that international finance has a positive, but currently weak, effect on financial development in SADC and countries with international financial centres contribute more to financial development than countries without. Proximity to South Africa creates huge potential for increasing financial development in SADC through spill-overs and more benefits of spatial proximity are realised in the long-run. Given the strong spatial effects in money markets and significant positive spill-overs in credit markets in the region, countries closer to South Africa need to link their money and credit markets to the South African markets and possibly benchmark to the Rand so as to benefit from proximity and spill-overs from South Africa. The results also suggest that SADC countries need to capitalise on their proximity to South Africa to enhance financial development by promoting economic growth, financial innovation, opening and diversification of financial sectors and linkages to global financial markets. Financial innovation supports financial inclusion, cross-border flows of funds, remittances and trade in SADC and has effects of enabling integration with developed markets and facilitating economic activity. Opening financial sectors enhances diversification of financial systems, increases competition and efficiency. To enhance access to international finance, the study suggests the creation of information centres in South Africa with SADC countries as economic hinterlands, commercialisation of solutions to SADC countries financial challenges, financial integration and support for deepening of financial systems in these countries. Strengthening economic growth could also increase financial development given a strong demand-following causality. The major challenge, however, is that some of the SADC countries have underdeveloped and highly concentrated financial systems characterised by high financial intermediation inefficiencies, high financial exclusion, weak financial infrastructure and regulations. Consequently, countries suffer financial leakages, are not receptive to spatial externalities and financial spill-overs from South Africa and often generate financial spillbacks to South Africa. SADC countries should, however, first address the issue of financial exclusion, financial infrastructure and regulation as well as efficiency in the financial markets. The SADC countries need mechanisms to attract financial development from South Africa to benefit from positive spill-overs and instruments to deal with negative externalities of financial shocks in South Africa. Overall, there is potential for increased financial development in SADC by consolidating absorption of positive financial spill-overs and externalities of proximity to South Africa -particularly in the medium to long term. Heterogeneity among SADC countries and the varying levels of financial development, however, dictates that the region should promote financial integration in order to enhance development of underdeveloped financial systems through spatial spill-over gains

Off the Orbit: Works of Art for Long-Term Space Travellers. Outline of a novel artistic practice

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.This research combines the arts with human spaceflight. The aim of the investigation is to identify the aesthetic parameters for display in works of art on extended crewed missions. The study claims that, within the research area of human spaceflight, novel working methods should be developed that can integrate the artist into the scientific process. The extraordinary challenges of extended space exploration not only concern technical and human-bodily aspects, they will also affect the enormous psychological and psychosocial restrictions the spacefarer will face. These limitations are due to the unusual distance and the long timeframes; the future explorers will live confined and isolated within the habitat environment far away from their place of origin. In addition, the consequences of sensory deprivation caused by the high-tech indoor habitat, the emptiness of outer space, the effects of social monotony and limited contact with home will dominate their life in the extreme environment and the emotional state of the future explorer. Many cultural techniques for recreation and stress mitigation are already in use or will be tested in human spaceflight in the near future. However, in this context the implementation of works of art has not been evaluated. The production of works of art for future astronauts represents a new research area. From the artistic perspective, creativity will expand in an unusual manner. Artists will not only have to develop significant metaphors, they will also be confronted with an unknown responsibility, because the confined and isolated astronaut will become the exclusive audience and user of their works. Furthermore, works of art must follow the particular demands of verifiability, safety, and reliability. These specific conditions will give the artistic work a unique meaning which makes the work a part of the life-sustaining system. The outcome will be an experiment that combines both artistic and scientific strategies

Practice, Communication and Space: A reflection on the materiality of social structures

The general issue of relations between sociality and spatiality, until recently profoundly ignored outside spatial studies, has become a focus of great theoretical attention in a number of disciplines – what has been called, remarkably, the “spatial turn” in social and cultural theory. The thesis wishes to address a central problem in that debate: the connection of practice and space. It does so emphasising a dimension that has not been previously explored to a significant degree: the conditions of sociation of practice, or a material account of how action becomes social action and practice social practice. In other words, it investigates the place of space in semantically mediated interactions that constitute the knots in (spatialised) networks of sociation – or communication. The thesis explores the spatiality of practice and communication as a problem worth of theoretical attention, suggesting that precisely the absence of this dimension has led theory to fail to spot the spatial traces of relations between our daily acts – traces active in the very moment of sociation of practice, indeed constitutive of the very possibility of any sociation; traces produced and performed through the interpenetration of communication and space. The question the thesis addresses is the possibility of space not just as contingent location but also in itself encapsulating an essential constituent of the communicative condition of the social. The aim of this thesis is to focus on this theoretical deficit in a number of ways. First, existing theories of society and space relations as found in social theory, architecture and human geography are reviewed in order to assess how far they provide compelling answers to the problem of the communicative constitution of practice, and from this analysis, to set areas where further progress is needed. Second, an attempt is made to build an alternative frame to the sociality-spatiality relation as a relation between practice, communication and space, drawing on a number of diverse sources, mainly the theory of self-referentiality of Niklas Luhmann, the theory of communicative action of Jürgen Habermas, the post-modern questioning of notions like “meaning” and “structure,” and new approaches in human geography and architecture. Thirdly, the implications of this unconventional approach to the spatiality of the social world are discussed, and a concept, the duality of meaning is proposed as a means to address the multiple relations between space and social practice. Fourth, the thesis suggests the possibility that the spatial emergence of practice as a communicative process requires, in order to come into being, some structuring of the space in which it occurs – a mutual, referential structuration beyond the contingency of practice and space. Developing the idea of space as referential to communication, the thesis shows how space becomes the unconscious but referential substrate which provides a certain form of available organisation to the semantic field where communication networks are performed, and social structures constantly emerge and fade away in connections of linguistic acts and spaces. It suggests that a new and active role for space may be identified in the sociality-spatiality relation: a “semanticised space” as a key dimension of (1) the “communicability of practice,” i.e. the informational connections that mediate the passage from the individual act into the socialised act that takes part in unfolding social events; and (2) the very possibility of ontological relatedness, seeing space as a dimension of the “strings of reference” that produce the sense of “world-relationality” or structure, inform socialities of possibilities of acts, and constitute the very possibility of actualisation of acts through the referentiality of practice, communication and space. Disclosing a “material referentiality” at the heart of practice, as the crisscrossing of communication, language, and space, it finally suggests the possibility of space as a counterpart to the elusiveness of forms of communication and relationality in the social world, such as those semiotic fluxes based on spoken and written language, and electronic and visual media. In building such a conceptual scheme, the thesis lays down the aims of a “referential approach” to the materiality of the social world: clarifying space itself in the communicability of practice; clarifying its role for socialities by showing a referential space as a means to the sociation of acts; and clarifying socialities themselves by showing how profoundly and pervasively they rely on the referentiality of space

Global restructuring and local anti-poverty action: learning from European experimental programms

Este trabalho discute como os Municípios podem reforçar o seu contributo para a luta contra a pobreza num contexto mundial de reestruturação global. Em primeiro lugar, começa por introduzir a relevância da ‘transição paradigmática’ nas ciências sociais no âmbito da luta contra a pobreza e apresenta o contributo do realismo ‘crítico’ como possível quadro de referência epistemológico para a coerência e legitimidade científica do trabalho a desenvolver. Seguidamente, o trabalho propõe um modo de conceptualizar a luta contra a pobreza. Conceitos como ‘pobreza’, ‘necessidaddes básicas’, ‘agência e estrutura’, ‘localidade’ e ‘integração económica’ são discutidos e o seu conteúdo definido com rigor. Em terceiro lugar, o desenvolvimento teórico do trabalho oferece uma perspectiva de diferentes contributos na explicação do processo de ‘reestruturação global’, desenvolvimento local e planeamento territorial. A mudança contemporânea é explicada como transição para um regime de ‘acumulação flexível’, é desenvolvida uma teoria de ‘subdesenvolvimento local’ orientada para a acção e é apresentada uma teoria de planeamento como ‘empowering dialogue’ oferecendo em conjunto um quadro de referência coerente onde situar a acção Municipal na luta contra a pobreza. Finalmente, com base na ‘síntese realista’ diversos programas ‘experimentais’ de iniciativa Europeia e respectivos exercícios de avaliação são ‘revisitados’ e ‘lições’ são retiradas. Estes programas oferecem muitos exemplos de possíveis formas de concretização da acção. A relevância dos seus resultados é assegurada pelo quadro epistemológico, conceptual e teórico deste trabalho. É possível discutir a dependência conceptual e contextual das ‘ideias potencialmente migrantes’ e que podem ser consideradas como resultando das aprendizagens proporcionadas pelos programas. Também é foi possível discutir a sua contribuição para a legitimidade de mensagens-chave e implicações de política e propor algumas perspectivas para futuros desenvolvimentos do trabalho agora apresentado.This work discusses how Municipalities can improve their contribution to anti-poverty action in a context of global restructuring. First, it starts by introducing the relevance of the ‘paradigmatic transition’ in the social sciences to anti-poverty action and presents the contribution of ‘critical’ realism as a possible framework for ensuring coherence to the work to be developed. Second, the work proposes a way of conceptualising anti-poverty action. Concepts such as ‘poverty’, ‘basic-needs’, ‘agency and structure’, ‘locality’ and ‘economic integration’ are discussed and defined with precision. Third, the theoretical development of the work offers an overview of contributions aiming to explain ‘global restructuring’, local development and territorial planning and discusses their relevance to anti-poverty action. Contemporary change is explained as a transition to ‘flexible accumulation’, an action-oriented theory of ‘local underdevelopment’ is developed and territorial planning as an ‘empowering dialogue’ is presented offering a coherent framework where to situate Municipal anti-poverty action. Finally, on the basis of ‘realist synthesis’ several European experimental programmes and their evaluation exercises are ‘revisited’ and ‘lessons’ are learned. These programmes offer many examples of action possibilities and enable the identification of policy implications. The relevance of their outcomes is given by the epistemological, conceptual and theoretical framework of this work. It was possible to discuss the ‘concept-dependent’ and ‘contextdependent’ relevance of the potential ‘migrating ideas’ learned from experimental action. It was also possible to discuss their contribution to the legitimacy of key-messages and policy implications and propose some different perspectives for future developments of the work presented now.ISCT