The Politics of User-Driven Innovation: On innovative users, do-able needs, and frugal robots

Users play an increasingly important role in European innovation policy. They are commonly seen as drivers of and active co-creators within innovation processes. However, user-driven innovation remains infused with a number of assumptions about users, technology, and “successful” innovation, which (partly) undermine a more democratic, open approach to innovation. In this contribution, I investigate the interplay between broader policy assumptions in the European discourse on user-driven innovation and its practical performance within an innovation project centring on healthcare robotics. Here, I argue that the politics of user-driven innovation harbours particular assumptions that, in effect, restrict the agency of users while also engendering conflict and contradictory outcomes. Hence, user-driven innovation is not simply about users driving innovation but rather about interfacing users and their concerns with (robotics) developers and their technology. For this, I propose an analytics of interfacing, which draws together literatures on the performative dynamics of participatory processes and more recent work on the political economy of participation. Here, I contend that it is not enough to investigate the construction and performance of publics; rather, it is additionally necessary to follow the manifold practices by which those publics are rendered available for certain technological solutions – and vice versa. Such an analytical approach opens up a fruitful avenue to critically enquire into the politics of participation – sitting in between innovation policy and practice

The Future of Enterprise Information Systems

[First paragraph] Enterprise information systems (EIS) have been important enablers of crossfunctional processes within businesses since the 1990s. Often referred to as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, they were extended in line with electronic businesses to integrate with suppliers as well as customers. Today, EIS architectures comprise not only ERP, supply chain, and customer relationship management systems, but also business intelligence and analytics. Recently, the move towards decentralized technologies has created new perspectives for EIS. Information systems (IS) research has already addressed opportunities and challenges of these developments quite well, but what will be the pressing opportunities and challenges for supporting enterprises with IS in the coming years? The remainder of this discussion focuses on the future of EIS from diverse but complementary perspectives

Symptoms of complexity in a tourism system

Tourism destinations behave as dynamic evolving complex systems, encompassing numerous factors and activities which are interdependent and whose relationships might be highly nonlinear. Traditional research in this field has looked after a linear approach: variables and relationships are monitored in order to forecast future outcomes with simplified models and to derive implications for management organisations. The limitations of this approach have become apparent in many cases, and several authors claim for a new and different attitude. While complex systems ideas are amongst the most promising interdisciplinary research themes emerged in the last few decades, very little has been done so far in the field of tourism. This paper presents a brief overview of the complexity framework as a means to understand structures, characteristics, relationships, and explores the implications and contributions of the complexity literature on tourism systems. The objective is to allow the reader to gain a deeper appreciation of this point of view.Comment: 32 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; accepted in Tourism Analysi

Technological capability building through networking strategies within high-tech industries

technological, networking, strategies, high-tech industries

Technological capability building through networking strategies within high-tech industries

Learning through networks has been considered as an important research topic for several years now. Technological learning is more and more based on a combination of internal and external learning and firms need to develop both technological and social capital for that purpose. This paper analyses the relationship between both types of capital and their impact on the technological performance of companies in high-tech industries. We claim and find empirical evidence for decreasing marginal returns on social capital. Technological capital and social capital mutually reinforce each other's effect on the rate of innovation for companies with small patent and alliance portfolios. However, when the patent portfolio and network of alliances are extensive, companies risk to over-invest since optimal levels of social capital become smaller at higher levels of technological capital and the marginal benefits of investing in technological capital decreases the higher the levels of social capital. Finally, we find empirical evidence that companies that explore novel and pioneering technologies have higher levels of innovation performance in subsequent years than companies that solely invest in incremental innovations.Strategic Alliances, Networks, Innovation

The Role of the Doctoral Consortium: An Information Systems Signature Pedagogy?

The doctoral consortium is a well-established, widely endorsed event in the information systems (IS) discipline that occurs adjunct to mainstream IS conferences (e.g., ICIS, ECIS, PACIS, AMCIS). Anecdotal evidence suggests that PhD students’ experience of these events is almost universally positive; some have referred to the events as “life changing” or “magical”. Further, both participating students and scholars strongly perceive the events’ value. To extend the experience to more PhD students, doctoral consortia are more recently being run locally and unaffiliated with any conference. By reviewing the literature and historical documents and conducting a series of interviews and email exchanges with past conference co-chairs, we explore the merits of IS doctoral consortia (consortia). We position the IS doctoral consortium as distinct from forms of doctoral student development in other disciplines, a veritable “signature pedagogy” for IS. In examining the practices and motivations underlying doctoral consortia, we explain related phenomena to improving future consortia. In addition, by appending much historical detail, we add to the IS discipline’s organizational memory

Information Seeking Behaviour of Scientific Community at Assam, India: A Proposed Model for E-Environment

The present study has been undertaken to know the information seeking pattern of the scientific community who belong to different universities under the study. In this study, it has been tried to find out the satisfaction after utilization of print or digital information resources available in the digital environment with a view to understand the situation of the existing library system. After evaluation and observation of the findings of the study critically, it leads to create confusion regarding the nature of information seeking pattern by the scientific community. It is found that the existing library information system is seemed to be less functional. The experience gathered from personal visit, observation and discussion with scientific community by the researcher also has realized that there is a big gap or problem in accessing information from university library system. So, there is an urgent need to develop a model which can fulfill the requirement of scientific community. Thus, one new model of information seeking behaviour is proposed namely “Information Seeking Model for Scientific Community at Assam” (ISMSCA) which might solve the problem of scientific community, if implemented

Patterns of industrial upgrading in the clothing industry in Poland and Romania

This paper aims at understanding the impact of industrial networks with foreign and other domestic organizations on industrial upgrading of the clothing companies in Poland and Romania over the past decade. The research presented in this paper is based on interviews carried out in ten large clothing companies in Poland and Romania. The paper shows that there are differing structural influences of buyer-driven global networks on the industrial upgrading of Polish and Romanian clothing firms. Taking these global buyers as exemplars to themselves, Polish and Romanian clothing firms follow relatively different upgrading patterns, experiencing more or less the same network relationships with foreign buyers whereas differing networks with other organizations in their countries. As the level of accumulation of knowledge and skills differs among the firms, the pace and level of upgrading differs too. This paper has proposed a stylized pattern but it should not be taken as inevitable since it also tries to show that some firms might skip some sequences. As a consequence, it is not a question of the positioning of the countries on a single upgrading ladder, but more accurately it is different upgrading ladders that have been climbed in each country. There is no single pattern for all of them

Religion-motivated Enterprises in the Marketplace: A Macromarketing Inquiry

This exploratory essay identifies and examines a variety of religiously affiliated or inspired enterprises operating in otherwise secular marketplaces. While explicitly recognizing that some marketplace manifestations of religion can be controversial, even dysfunctional, it argues for the evident macromarketing relevance of this project. The approach for analyzing what this paper refers to as “religion-motivated enterprises” (RMEs) consists of (1) a nominal classification scheme to illustrate and categorize the diversity of RME examples; (2) some foundational principles shared among major faith traditions that provide a basis for an RME ethos; and (3) basic propositions that, with future empirical testing, may explain the contributions of these organizations to improved market performance. Our commentary includes environmental factors that prompted the establishment of many RMEs, the nature of their sustainability, and the importance of mission statements to their operations. Finally, we identify opportunities for additional research and summarize the macromarketing contributions of this article