The Two Faces of Open Innovation: NetworkExternalities and Learning.

In this paper I differentiate between two types of benefits of open innova- tion. Network externalities e¤ect happens when open innovation increases the participation of one group of users which increases the value of adoption for another group of users. Learning e¤ect happens when economic actors increase their knowledge through access to external sources of knowledge. I investigate how each effect can be dominant depending on nature of products, by drawing upon previous research in product modularity. In addition I discuss the fac- tors which will strengthen or weaken the e¤ects of each dimension. The main variables which influence learning are, tacitness of knowledge, technological op- portunities, appropriability of knowledge and turbulence. Network externalities e¤ect can be strengthened by increased user innovation.

The Virtual University and Avatar Technology: E-learning Through Future Technology

E-learning gains increasingly importance in academic education. Beyond present distance learning technologies a new opportunity emerges by the use of advanced avatar technology. Virtual robots acting in an environment of a virtual campus offer opportunities of advanced learning experiences. Human Machine Interaction (HMI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bridge time zones and ease professional constraints of mature students. Undergraduate students may use such technology to build up topics of their studies beyond taught lectures. Objectives of the paper are to research the options, extent and limitations of avatar technology for academic studies in under- and postgraduate courses and to discuss students' potential acceptance or rejection of interaction with AI. The research method is a case study based on Sir Tony Dyson's avatar technology iBot2000. Sir Tony is a worldwide acknowledged robot specialist, creator of Star Wars' R2D2, who developed in recent years the iBot2000 technology, intelligent avatars adaptable to different environments with the availability to speak up to eight different languages and capable to provide logic answers to questions asked. This technology underwent many prototypes with the latest specific goal to offer blended E-learning entering the field of the virtual 3-D university extending Web2.0 to Web3.0 (Dyson. 2009). Sir Tony included his vast experiences gained in his personal (teaching) work with children for which he received his knighthood. The data was mainly collected through interviews with Sir Tony Dyson, which helps discover the inventor’s view on why such technology is of advantage for academic studies. Based on interviews with Sir Tony, this research critically analyses the options, richness and restrictions, which avatar (iBot2000) technology may add to academic studies. The conclusion will discuss the opportunities, which avatar technology may be able to bring to learning and teaching activities, and the foreseeable limitations – the amount of resources required and the complexity to build a fully integrated virtual 3-D campus. Key Words: virtual learning, avatar technology, iBot2000, virtual universit

From The Black Panther Party To Black Lives Matter: The Weaponization Of Surveillance Against Black Activists

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Manuel Castells and Informationalism

Understanding how the social appropriation of information and communication technologies came to define the contemporary period is critical for researchers and practitioners of innovation, business and management. This paper explores how the work of Manuel Castells as a social theorist provides the intellectual tools and the encompassing lenses to enable the study and navigate the process of structural transformation in which our lives have been engulfed from the 1970s onwards. Castells’ procedure of considering technology, social usages and structural history leads him to a key conceptual result: the introduction of the “Network Society” concept. His ideas have most notably been applied to the field of communications studies, which he analyses through the prism of power. However, these insights are not containable in one single discipline as the implications of informationalism stretch in a variety of directions, making other dimensions of society amenable to the network perspective. Organisational studies are one topic in which this line of enquiry may fruitfully be pursued.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

More bits - more bucks? Measuring the impact of broadband internet on firm performance

The paper provides empirical evidence for the causal impact of broadband Internet on the economic performance of German firms. Performance is measured in terms of labour productivity and realised process and product innovations. The analysis refers to the early phase of DSL expansion in Germany from 2001 to 2003, when roughly 60 percent of the German firms already used broadband Internet. Identification relies on instrumental variable estimation taking advantage of information on the availability of DSL broadband at the postal code level. The results show that broadband Internet has no impact on firms' labour productivity whereas it exhibits a positive and significant impact on their innovation activity. --labour productivity,innovation,broadband Internet

The Joint Effect of Technological Distance and Market Distance on Strategic Alliances.

The literature on strategic alliances has deepened our understanding of the mechanisms behind their formation. This literature has given a central role to complementarities between firms, whereby complementarities are usually measured by technological overlap. An established result tells us that, there is an inverted-u relationship between technological distance and learning by firms. In this paper, we argue that technological distance is only one aspect of complementarities. Equally important is the market distance, which we define as the extent to which the value generated by the alliance depends on the synergies between firms’ products. These synergies may occur because of the complementarities between products, or the possibilities to apply similar knowledge fields in different product domains. Through an agent based simulation study, we show that when firms consider both distances jointly, an alliance strategy which favours being close in at least one dimension yields the highest payoff, rather than being at the intermediate distance in both dimensions.

Discourses on ICT and development.

Research on ICT and development (ICTD) involves assumptions on the nature of ICT innovation and on the way such innovation contributes to development. In this article I review the multidisciplinary literature on ICTD and identify two perspectives regarding the nature of the ICT innovation process in developing countries - as transfer and diffusion and as socially embedded action - and two perspectives on the development transformation towards which ICT is understood to contribute - progressive transformation and disruptive transformation. I then discuss the four discourses formed by combining the perspectives on the nature of IS innovation and on the development transformation. My review suggests that ICTD research, despite its remarkable theoretical capabilities to study technology innovation in relation to socio-economic context, remains weak in forming convincing arguments on IT-enabled socio-economic development.

Metaphors for Meaningful Documents

The ever-increasing speed and reach of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are often lauded for the beneficial social effects we are told they have. This raises questions about the connection between knowledge and social relationships, especially concerning meaningful relationships in a world where people are increasingly represented as data. To answer this question, one approach is to consider the role of documents in communicating “meaningful” content in pursuit of understanding. Because this is difficult to articulate, this paper takes the approach of using metaphors—specifically of the document as a bridge, a window, a painting, a briefcase, and a mirror—to consider the possibilities for documents to aid or impede relationships. To provide something concrete upon which to reflect, this paper applies the metaphors to documents that are explicitly tied to meaning about individuals: those created by the United Church of Canada as part of its process of reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous people. Thinking about the church’s documents through the lens of metaphors is an initial conceptual step in thinking about the meaning in these documents. Through the metaphors, we gain important insights into the extent to which documents connect individuals as they are called to in the ICT environment