136 research outputs found
The Information Society: Technological, socio-economic and cultural aspects - Prolegomena for a sustainability-oriented ethics of ICTs.
This thesis studies the enabling properties of ICT and their effects and potential for social change, and prepares the ground for a sustainability-oriented ethico-political assessment of this technology. It primarily builds on interdisciplinary scholarship to describe and explain the multifaceted co-evolution between the global deployment of ICTs and the emergence of the Information Society, understood as a socioeconomic restructuring of capitalism. Beyond the role of ICTs in this regime transition, the thesis delivers other philosophical insights about crucial aspects of ICT development, applications and management. These include arguments about how we should conceptualize ICTs on the basis of their different roles in extending human communication and in performing or facilitating the remote control of humans and animals, machines and systems operations; about the entanglement between telecommunications, transport networks, urban development and work and organization; and about the relations between ICTs, culture and human values. Examples are offered to illustrate the potential that these empirical and philosophical lessons may hold for the construction of a framework for the ethico-political assessment of ICTs
Discontentment and knowledge spillovers in an emerging high-tech industry: a study of the emergence of the RFID industry
This thesis is an inductive study of how entrepreneurs and their collaborators use or encourage knowledge spillovers to fuel technological innovations during the emergence of a knowledge intensive industry. Drawing on theories of the entrepreneurial process, innovation during industry emergence, and knowledge spillovers, this thesis seeks to explain the process by which entrepreneurs, facing market, organizational and technological uncertainty, use their existing knowledge to procure, share and create new knowledge during the early stages of an emerging industry. The core research question is why, when and how do knowledge spillovers occur in an emerging industry?
The thesis is based on an extensive case study of the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) industry, including both interview data and analysis of patent data. The approach of data collection, analysis and theory development follows the systematic methodology articulated by Glaser and Strauss (1967), Glaser (1992) and Strauss and Corbin (1998) for developing a grounded theory. The qualitative research
involved 57 in-depth interviews (45 interviewees) from around the world with the inventors and entrepreneurs who have shaped the emerging RFID industry.
The thesis makes a number of important contributions to existing literature.
First, it provides a comprehensive description of the emergence of the RFID industry in the United States and Europe with a focus on patent activity surrounding specific innovations and the nature of information flows between firms in the value chain.
Second, core findings are that the discovery, evaluation and
exploitation of opportunities by individuals in the RFID industry were the result of knowledge spillovers that resulted from extensive social interactions; that knowledge spillovers can be instigated by entrepreneurs or their collaborators by molding or recognizing discontentment in potential knowledge workers, a process which is described as "discontentment provocation"; and that a core generative process to the emergence of a new industry is knowledge
spillover. Contrary to existing literature, patents played a relatively insignificant role in knowledge spillovers relative to social interaction in the emerging RFID industry. Furthermore, knowledge spillovers were not geographically bound and localized within spatial proximity
to the knowledge source.
Third, the analysis of the empirical data identifies the dimensions "discontentment", "human agency" and "social interaction" as underpinning the process that fostered the generation and propagation of knowledge during the emergence of this industry. The discontentment dimension, originating from negative forces, acts as a catalyst to trigger the process of human agency, the decision to pass
on information and knowledge to another party. Human agency then leads seamlessly into social interaction, resulting in the acquisition, interpretation and/or sharing of information and knowledge.
Discontented individuals were the knowledge conduits who diffused information and knowledge to entrepreneurs and their collaborators through social interaction.
Fourth, this thesis also advances the theory of knowledge spillovers in an emerging knowledge intensive industry by expanding upon the "Entrepreneurial Motivational Model" proposed by Shane et al. (2003). It introduces the triggering events that motivate an individual to seek change prior to the discovery of an opportunity and the social exchanges which take place during different steps of the entrepreneurial process.
Overall, this study has important implications for those studying the entrepreneurial process, the emergence of new industries, and knowledge spillovers
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Rapid Advance: High Technology in China in the Global Electronic Age
This study examines how a critical high technology industry in China, the semiconductor industry, advanced from being an isolated, centrally planned industry in the mid 1980s to being an important participant in the competitive global semiconductor industry after 2000. The research examines the most important trends, projects, and enterprises in China, with attention to China's global partners and China's rapidly growing role in the world economy. In the 1990s, semiconductor enterprises in China proactively made key structural changes and global linkages that set the stage for the industry's growth after 2000. The study thus provides an industry level assessment of how reforms and technological upgrading occurred in contemporary China, including the degree and character of so-called state led development. This research also shows that the development of this high technology industry had direct and positive effects on China's larger business environment and trade policies. Finally, this study compares the development of the semiconductor industry in China with its development in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, identifying differences in national approaches and the effects of the global information revolution
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Rapid Advance: High Technology in China in the Global Electronic Age
This study examines how a critical high technology industry in China, the semiconductor industry, advanced from being an isolated, centrally planned industry in the mid 1980s to being an important participant in the competitive global semiconductor industry after 2000. The research examines the most important trends, projects, and enterprises in China, with attention to China's global partners and China's rapidly growing role in the world economy. In the 1990s, semiconductor enterprises in China proactively made key structural changes and global linkages that set the stage for the industry's growth after 2000. The study thus provides an industry level assessment of how reforms and technological upgrading occurred in contemporary China, including the degree and character of so-called state led development. This research also shows that the development of this high technology industry had direct and positive effects on China's larger business environment and trade policies. Finally, this study compares the development of the semiconductor industry in China with its development in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, identifying differences in national approaches and the effects of the global information revolution
Strategic knowledge creation through the analysis of the structure of the network formed by the participants of european R&D projects. Case of the emerging sector of renewable energies, at organizatio
321 p.La estrategia del Espacio Europeo de InvestigaciĂłn (ERA) tiene como objetivo aumentar el porcentaje de energĂas renovables en el mix energĂ©tico hasta el 20% para el año 2020, impulsando este sector multidisciplinar y emergente. Existe la incertidumbre de crear consorcios de proyectos de I+D incluyendo colaboraciones ineficientes de transmisiĂłn de informaciĂłn y conocimiento entre los socios y las regiones locales. Esta tesis doctoral se centra en los proyectos europeos de I + D en los sectores de energĂa eĂłlica, solar, marina, geotĂ©rmica y biomasa, para el perĂodo 2000 2013. El objetivo final de la tesis ha sido presentar el potencial de la tĂ©cnica AnĂĄlisis de Redes Sociales, para obtener conocimiento estratĂ©gico para la toma de decisiones de un sector tecnolĂłgico emergente y multidisciplinar. Para ello, se ha tomado como base la aplicabilidad de la teorĂa de redes sociales y la utilidad de la informaciĂłn que proporcionan los proyectos de I+D. Por un lado, muestra teĂłricamente el potencial de la informaciĂłn sobre proyectos para crear conocimiento estratĂ©gico a travĂ©s de la aplicaciĂłn integrada de los enfoques de centralidad y Âżstructural holeÂż de AnĂĄlisis de Redes Sociales. Por otro lado, aporta la creaciĂłn de conocimiento estratĂ©gico en el sector de las energĂas renovables en Europa, proporcionando conocimiento de valor añadido en base a la eficiencia sobre las organizaciones y regiones locales participantes en estos proyectos. Concluye en cĂłmo influyen estos en el resto de actores de las redes de colaboraciĂłn, quiĂ©nes son eficientes y quiĂ©nes tienen un rol facilitador de cohesiĂłn de la red de transferencia de informaciĂłn y conocimiento adquirido a travĂ©s de los proyectos I&D, aplicable a cualquier sector, normalmente subvencionados por organismos pĂșblicos cuando son sectores emergentes. Este estudio constituye una novedosa contribuciĂłn, siendo una herramienta complementaria a los estudios de patentes y publicaciones que los responsables polĂticos deben considerar al invertir en proyectos pĂșblicos de I+D, para construir ERA eficientemente
Governance Through Social Learning
Governance connotes the way an organization, an economy, or a social system co-ordinates and steers itself. Some insist that governing is strictly a top-down process guided by authority and coercion, while others emphasize that it emerges bottom-up through the workings of the free market. This book rejects these simplistic views in favour of a more distributed view of governance based on a mix of coercion, quid pro quo market exchange and reciprocity, on a division of labour among the private, public, and civic sectors, and on the co-evolution of these different integration mechanisms. This book is for both practitioners confronted with governance issues and for citizens trying to make sense of the world around them
The use and misuse of clusters in economic development policy : a case study of two cluster policy initiatives in the North East of England
PhD ThesisThis thesis examines the development of cluster policy and considers the extent to
which difficulties in implementing cluster policy can be attributed to a lack of
understanding of the concepts that underlie clusters. In order to move beyond the
work of Michael Porter's (1990,1998) and to provide a conceptualisation of clusters
that considers the notion that traded transactions may be more efficiently conducted
when spatially concentrated, but also allows for an understanding that economic
processes are path dependent, influenced by their institutional and cultural context and
shaped by the motivations and behaviour of individual actors, this thesis uses
Storper's (1997) `holy trinity' of `technologies-organisations-territories' as a
framework to examine a wide range of concepts that underlie our understanding of
clusters. The conclusion is that clusters are highly context dependent, and that multilayered
explanations for their existence and evolution are required.
The way in which cluster policy has developed is also highly context dependent and
each element of Storper's triumvirate has implications for cluster policy. Given a lack
of agreement as to the definition and nature of cluster policy, this thesis proposes that
cluster policy development be understood as a process and a five-stage cluster policy
model is developed. This model is used both to consider the literature regarding
cluster policy and also as a framework to examine the development of two cluster
policy initiatives in the North East of England and their impact on actors within one
particular cluster in the region. These case studies indicate that the level of
understanding of cluster concepts amongst policy makers, and issues throughout the
cluster policy making process, impacted on the development and the outcomes of the
policy initiatives, but that the development and outcomes were also influenced by the
nature of the particular cluster. The thesis concludes that a better understanding of the
scale and boundaries of clusters and the distinct theoretical elements making up
cluster concepts may lead to a better conceptualisation of clusters and cluster theory.
A series of policy recommendations is then drawn.Economic and Social Research
Counci
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