China's Innovation System and the Move Toward Harmonious Growth and Endogenous Innovation

Observers around the world are impressed by the rapid growth of China’s economy. While outside observers tend to focus on the success story of unprecedented growth policy documents and recent domestic debates in China have pointed to the need for a shift in the growth trajectory with stronger emphasis on ‘endogenous innovation’ and ‘harmonious development’. This paper attempts to capture the current characteristics of China’s production and innovation system; how they were shaped by history and what major challenges they raise for the future. On the basis of the analysis the authors propose that it is possible to link together the two key concepts ‘endogenous innovation’ and ‘harmonious development’ by focusing innovation and development efforts in China on domestic needs, including social needs, rather than a one-sided focus on export-promotion and commodity production.China; economic growth; R&D; innovation systems

Speculation beyond technology: building scenarios through storytelling

‘Modern methods of construction’ is a term largely synonymous with the prefabrication of product components in factories. Emerging technologies, e.g. robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), are redefining the concept of modern methods of construction and destabilising the structure of the sector to meet the conditions of their implementation. Robotics and machine-based automation, for example, are expected to transform construction manufacturing techniques in rapid and significant ways, but the extent of change and the associated impacts on organisations, supply chains and business models that constitute the sector remains unknown. Existing foresight is dominated by trajectorial perspectives that overemphasise technological predictions and underemphasise the contextual stories of implementation most helpful in understanding technology adoption. An alternative approach presented here focuses on storytelling, the design of the scenarios and the visual images used to help convey these scenarios. These allow practitioners to explore how robotics and machine-based automation may play out in different characterisations of the industry. The research involved the analysis of an existing dataset to create four scenarios, before adapting and extending these scenarios through participatory workshops and interviews. Project participants were comprised of seven small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in manufacturing and architectural fabrication, one tier 1 contractor, and two acclaimed industry experts from an industry advisory board and education centre

How to Respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or the Second Information Technology Revolution? Dynamic New Combinations between Technology, Market, and Society through Open Innovation

How can we respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in terms of technology?&rdqu

The digital challenge for multinational mobile network operators. More marginalization or rejuvenation?

Multinational mobile network operators (MNOs) rapidly emerged in the early 1990s and for a decade and a half were the dominant actors in their industry. We analyze the development and competitiveness of a typical MNO, Telenor. With the introduction of 4G in 2010, we show that Telenor, like other MNOs largely failed to respond to the opportunity that connectivity provided to develop digital services. Instead, these were developed by technology platform companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Telenor became a marginalized supplier of standardized internet connectivity. We argue that the ‘decade of lost opportunity’ (2010-2020) for Telenor was a product of a lack of ‘recombinant firm-specific advantages’ (FSARs). With the launch of 5G, an emerging global digital infrastructure, this sidelining is set to intensify unless Telenor responds to this new opportunity by developing B2B digital services. We analyze the FSARs that are necessary for a successful transition of capturing the value that 5G provides and the degree to which they are present, or potentially present, in Telenor

Knowledge Management in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Mapping the Literature and Scoping Future Avenues

Due to increased competitive pressure, modern organizations tend to rely on knowledge and its exploitation to sustain a long-term advantage. This calls for a precise understanding of knowledge management (KM) processes and, specifically, how knowledge is created, shared/transferred, acquired, stored/retrieved, and applied throughout an organizational system. However, since the beginning of the new millennium, such KM processes have been deeply affected and molded by the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, also called Industry 4.0, which involves the interconnectedness of machines and their ability to learn and share data autonomously. For this reason, the present study investigates the intellectual structure and trends of KM in Industry 4.0. Bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review are conducted on a total of 90 relevant articles. The results reveal 6 clusters of keywords, subsequently explored via a systematic literature review to identify potential stream of this emergent field and future research avenues capable of producing meaningful advances in managerial knowledge of Industry 4.0 and its consequences

Collaborative System Architecture & Innovation: How Networked Organizations Embed Creative Production

Organizational innovation, the process of generating value through addressing problems in novel ways, has historically been an exclusive function of managerial oligarchies. This paper will address how the constant demand to innovate in the modern global economy, and the emergence of powerful communication networks, have together led corporations to increasingly expand their search for new ideas beyond upper management, turning their attention to the collective brainpower of their entire cohort of employees. Whereas the first rudimentary suggestion box systems of the early 20th century first allowed factory workers to contribute creatively in addition to their physical labor power, organizations such as Pfizer and Whirlpool now utilize digital platforms to add value to the company by collecting employee ideas while encouraging participation and collaboration. The paper concludes with an analysis of the political economy of these collective innovation systems. Are these networks leading to more democratic organizations and happier, more engaged workers? Or, are they primarily extracting labor power from employees in new ways, without equitably distributing the profits?Bachelor of Art

Complexity aided design: The FuturICT technological innovation paradigm

"In the next century, planet earth will don an electronic skin. It will use the Internet as a scaffold to support and transmit its sensations. This skin is already being stitched together. It consists of millions of embedded electronic measuring devices: thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones, glucose sensors, EKGs, electroencephalographs. These will probe and monitor cities and endangered species, the atmosphere, our ships, highways and fleets of trucks, our conversations, our bodies-even our dreams ....What will the earth's new skin permit us to feel? How will we use its surges of sensation? For several years-maybe for a decade-there will be no central nervous system to manage this vast signaling network. Certainly there will be no central intelligence...some qualities of self-awareness will emerge once the Net is sensually enhanced. Sensuality is only one force pushing the Net toward intelligence”. These statements are quoted by an interview by Cherry Murray, Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of Physics. It is interesting to outline the timeliness and highly predicting power of these statements. In particular, we would like to point to the relevance of the question "What will the earth's new skin permit us to feel?” to the work we are going to discuss in this paper. There are many additional compelling questions, as for example: "How can the electronic earth's skin be made more resilient?”; "How can the earth's electronic skin be improved to better satisfy the need of our society?”;"What can the science of complex systems contribute to this endeavour?” Graphical abstrac

Post-automation: report from an international workshop

The purpose of this report is to share lessons from an international research workshop dedicated to post- automation. Twenty-seven researchers from eleven different countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, met at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University on 11-13 September 2019, where we discussed empirical research papers and explored post-automation in group activities. We write this report primarily for researchers, but also for activists and policy advisors looking for more imaginative approaches to governing technology, work and sustainability in society, compared to those dominant agendas adapting automatically to the interests behind automation. The report is structured as follows. Section two introduces the workshop topic and papers presented, and which leads into two related areas that became a focus for discussion. First, some challenges in the foundations of automation theory (section three). And second, post-automation as a more constructive proposition to the challenges of automation, and that is happening right now (section four). Section five summarises some key points arising from the workshop, based on empirical observations from the margins of digital technology development, and that give both a flavour of the workshop and help elaborate the post-automation proposition. Some analytical and strategic themes are discussed in section six. We conclude in section seven with proposals for a post-automation agenda

Repurposing the Built Environment: Emerging Challenges and Key Entry Points for Future Research

The built environment faces challenges in all three dimensions of sustainable development—economic, social, and environmental. The increasing loss of functionality is a cross-sectional issue affecting buildings and settlements and their layering of social, spatial, and cultural processes. Based on a critical review, this paper aims to bridge the gap between international charters and ongoing research for built environments losing their original uses. Three emerging challenges to sustainability in repurposing are outlined from the debate, checking their incidence on research: (a) values preservation, (b) resources optimization, (c) systems effectiveness promotion. Experiences of conversion and regeneration in Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Hong Kong City, and the USA are taken into account with the aim of comparing approaches, methods, and results. The discussion highlights three key entry points for future research on built environments: (1) communities involvement: new alliances between stakeholders, (2) the potential of technologies: combining resources’ protection and affordability, and (3) renewed productivity to preserve values and uses