Relations between institutions and industrial policies

The paper aims to show some of the complex relationships between institutions and industrial policies. Institutions are important factors determining the slow pace of change of the societies, their economies, States and private sectors, therefore presenting important consequences for the design of industrial policies. Having this as a backdrop, the paper tries to expose the relevance of a country institutionality for the choice of industrial policies and their possibilities of success. In the opposite direction, one important focus for many industrial policies are institutional changes, whether they are connected to the State or to the relationship between the State and the private sector, or even only to this last sector. The paper also investigates some of the difficulties and limits for these institutional changes.Industrial Policy; Institutions; Institutional Analysis; Development

The role of boundary objects in the co-evolution of design and use: the KMP project experimentation

Nowadays, it is widely recognized that an ICT tool cannot be built without knowing who will use it and what they will do with. In this perspective, Human-Computer Interaction community (Carroll, 1990; Jarke, Tung Bui and Carroll, 1998; Young and Barnard, 1987; Young and al., 1989) developed a scenario-based approach contrasting with the traditional information system design. The scenario describes an existing or envisioned system from the perspective of one or more users and includes a narration of their goals, plans and reactions (Rosson and Carroll, 2002). As a result, design is founded on the use of scenarios as a central representation for the analysis and design of use. The scenario-based design appears to be a first step in the integration of users in the design of ICT tool. However, we would like to underline in this paper a more active role of users in the design process. According to Orlikowski (2000) while a technology can be seen to have been constructed with particular materials and inscribed with developers' assumptions and knowledge about the world at a point in time, it is only when this technology is used in recurrent social practices that it can be said to structure user's action. The use of technology in recurrent social practices must be considered because how technological properties will for the moment be used or appropriate is not inherent or predetermined. Finally, this approach leads us to dissociate the designers' world from the users' world. In this perspective, the design project is the result of the co-evolution and the convergence of both worlds: on the one hand, the world of design and a first integration of users by scenarios; on the other hand, the world of users where innovation is the art of interesting an increasing number of allies who will make the world of design stronger and stronger. The objective of this paper is to understand the mechanisms of interaction between the world of design and that of users i.e. between loops of co-design and loops of uses. Indeed, according to Akrich, Callon and Latour (1988) we adopt a whirlwind model of innovation. In this perspective, “innovation continuously transforms itself according to the trials to which it is submitted i.e. of the “interessements” tried out » (Akrich and al., 2002: 7). We will demonstrate that the key success of an innovation depends on the co-evolution and convergence of design and use around boundary objects developed during this process (see Figure 1). More specifically, we will show the role of boundary objects on the integration and on the involvement of users in the design process. In order to do so, we carried out an empirical research – the Knowledge Management Platform project - located in the scientific park of Sophia Antipolis (Alpes-Maritimes, France), focusing on the Telecom Valley® (TV) association which gathers the main actors of the Sophia Antipolis Telecom cluster. Indeed, the KMP project aims to build a semantic web service of competencies in order to enhance exchange and combination dynamics of knowledge within the Telecom cluster thanks to an interactive mapping of competencies. This paper will comprise three parts: Based on the researches of Akrich, Callon and Latour (1988), Hatchuel and Mollet (1986), Orlikowski (2000), Romme and Endenburg (2006) we will identify and analyse in a first part the process of design. The combination of these approaches leads us to distinguish the design' world from the users' world. In this perspective, the success of an innovation may be explained by the co-evolution and the convergence of these two worlds. In this process, we suggest that boundary objects play a key role in the convergence of these two worlds. We will present in a second part the empirical study of the KMP project within the TV network. The KMP project involved researchers from socio-economic sciences (GREDEG Laboratory, UNSA-CNRS, Rodige and Latapses teams), cognitive sciences and artificial intelligence (INRIA, Acacia team), telecommunications (GET) and users (TV) for a total force of 187 men per month for a two-year period (2003-2005). At this present time this project is being set up in a pre-industrialization phase, supported by TV and the PACA region. Here, we will analyse the specific process of design experimented by KMP. Finally, the third part discusses the role of boundary objects in the KMP experimentation. In this part, we will show the evolution of boundary objects during the loops of design. More specifically, the focus will be on the emergence of compromises between designers and users, their materialisation in boundary objects and finally their evolution during the design' process.boundary objects, IS development, actor network theory

Dialogo filosofico con il Prof. M. Tomasello

In questa conversazione filosofica il prof. Michael Tomasello af- fronta questioni di psicologia evolutiva connesse alla filosofia del linguaggio e all’ontologia sociale. I suoi studi sui primati e sui bam- bini hanno il pregio di dimostrare come l’universo pragmatico dei secondi venga rivoluzionato dall’acquisizione del linguaggio e dalla capacità di intraprendere complessi comportamenti cooperativi alla base dello sviluppo di capacità intellettive avanzate. A partire da queste evidenze Tomasello sostiene l’immagine di una evoluzione culturale del genere umano fondata sulla scrittura e sulla sua enor- me capacità di conservare l’esperienza delle passate generazioni trasmettendola alle future, rendono così la nostra l’unica specie ad avere fatto della comunicazione e del dialogo potenti strumenti di prosperità e sviluppo. Il suo pensiero è stato oggetto di numerosi studi e dibattiti nell’ambito della cosiddetta ontologia sociale avendo contributo significativamente ad estendere la nostra comprensione sulla relazione tra pensiero, linguaggio e attività cooperative. Per i suoi meriti scientifici è stato insignito di numerosi e importanti riconoscimenti accademici internazionali

Intentionality and technological and institutional change: Implications for economic development

The interactive implementation of agents’ intentional actions generates new combinations that are at the base of structural change and complexity and produce unexpected consequences. An interesting case of study is provided by the absorption of new technology strategies for development. A common hypothesis is that development requires an institutional arrangement that allows for the exploitation of imported technology. However, historical examples (such as Cuba in the nineteenth century) show how the technological choices of highly innovative entrepreneurial élites may generate a trap of development even though institutions are conveniently adapted to accommodate new technology. To understand the nature of this type of development trap, we introduce a micro-meso-macro analytical approach based on Dopfer & Potts (2008). Institutions and technology are meso rule trajectories that coevolve in an emergence-disseminationretention process that interacts with both micro units (purposeful entrepreneurs) and the emergent macro properties of the system (development). Within this framework, it is shown how such a strategy for development may result in underdevelopment. The explanation is that, under special circumstances, the decoordination and re-coordination processes of meso trajectories may be unable to generate enough variety to feed the evolutionary process, and they thereby catch agents in such a “techno-institutional trap

Empowerment of Grassroots Consumers: A Revelatory Case of a Chinese Fintech Innovation

The recent emergence of financial technology (fintech) innovations offers a promising resolution to financial exclusion via mechanisms that empower financially underprivileged individuals to gain access rights in the traditional financial industry. However, academic research has provided little guidance on how to strategize the IT-enabled empowerment mechanisms for fintech innovations to realize both business success and financial inclusion. In this study, we conduct an in-depth revelatory case study on a novel Chinese fintech innovation, Yu’E Bao, a bellwether for the dramatic transformation of China’s financial industry through the successful empowerment of a large population of financially underprivileged individuals (i.e., “grassroots consumers,” translated from “cao gen” in Chinese). Through our systematic qualitative analysis of news articles collected since the product launch, we derive a two-stage theoretical model, examined through the lens of empowerment, and unravel the mechanisms underlying fintech innovation’s empowerment process on grassroots investment consumers. Most importantly, we elucidate a duality of empowerment through which the catalyst for Yu’E Bao’s success becomes an impediment to Yu’E Bao’s further development. Our study contributes to the literature on information technology-enabled empowerment, empowerment, and fintech. We also elucidate critical implications for various stakeholders, such as governments, policy makers, fintech practitioners, and product designers

‘The uses of ethnography in the science of cultural evolution’. Commentary on Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A. and K. Laland ‘Toward a unified science of cultural evolution’

There is considerable scope for developing a more explicit role for ethnography within the research program proposed in the article. Ethnographic studies of cultural micro-evolution would complement experimental approaches by providing insights into the “natural” settings in which cultural behaviours occur. Ethnography can also contribute to the study of cultural macro-evolution by shedding light on the conditions that generate and maintain cultural lineages

Human cumulative culture: a comparative perspective

Many animals exhibit social learning and behavioural traditions, but human culture exhibits unparalleled complexity and diversity, and is unambiguously cumulative in character. These similarities and differences have spawned a debate over whether animal traditions and human culture are reliant on homologous or analogous psychological processes. Human cumulative culture combines high-fidelity transmission of cultural knowledge with beneficial modifications to generate a ‘ratcheting’ in technological complexity, leading to the development of traits far more complex than one individual could invent alone. Claims have been made for cumulative culture in several species of animals, including chimpanzees, orang-utans and New Caledonian crows, but these remain contentious. Whilst initial work on the topic of cumulative culture was largely theoretical, employing mathematical methods developed by population biologists, in recent years researchers from a wide range of disciplines, including psychology, biology, economics, biological anthropology, linguistics and archaeology, have turned their attention to the experimental investigation of cumulative culture. We review this literature, highlighting advances made in understanding the underlying process of cumulative culture and emphasizing areas of agreement and disagreement amongst investigators in separate fields

Policy learning and adaptation in governance: A co-evolutionary perspective

This paper introduces the concepts and ideas that frame this special issue on co-evolution in governance, and their implications for policy learning and adaptation. It offers a brief overview of co-evolutionary approaches to governance and their elementary connections with systems theories, post-structuralism, institutionalism, and actor-network theory, and explores how they are connected to co-evolution in governance. Co-evolutionary approaches differ from other influential understandings of knowledge and learning in policy and governance. It furthermore presents a typology of learning in governance and systematically discusses how each type is affected by patterns of coevolution in governance

INVESTIGATING SUCCESS BIASED TRANSMISSION, AND LONG-TERM MEMORY CAPABILITIES, IN CHIMPANZEES AND CHILDREN: IMPLICATIONS FOR CUMULATIVE CULTURE.

Cumulative culture denotes the arguably human capacity to build on the developments of our predecessors. Factors such as imitation, teaching and cultural transmission biases have been identified as important for cumulative culture. In this thesis factors with implications for cumulative culture were investigated in chimpanzees and 4-to 5-year old children. Two experiments were designed to assess success biased copying in chimpanzees (and children) and a third study investigated chimpanzees’ retention and transfer of complex tool use skills. Information pertaining to success derived from others’ performances influenced both chimpanzees and children’s subsequent actions during a video based foraging task and token exchange task. Specifically, some of the first evidence for public information use and payoff biased transmission was documented in both species and thus suggests that a lack of such assessment abilities does not underlie the lack of cumulative culture in chimpanzees. In the final empirical study, some of the first evidence for appreciable long-term memory and improvements in the utility of complex tool manufacture was documented in chimpanzees. High fidelity retention of (socially) learned information is important for cumulative culture, where behaviour must be retained with sufficient fidelity for it to be reproduced. This is especially so where, for example, tool use is required to access temporally rare resources (e.g. nuts falling certain months of the year/seasonal resources)

Innovation in the collective brain

Innovation is often assumed to be the work of a talented few, whose products are passed on to the masses. Here, we argue that innovations are instead an emergent property of our species' cultural learning abilities, applied within our societies and social networks. Our societies and social networks act as collective brains. We outline how many human brains, which evolved primarily for the acquisition of culture, together beget a collective brain. Within these collective brains, the three main sources of innovation are serendipity, recombination and incremental improvement. We argue that rates of innovation are heavily influenced by (i) sociality, (ii) transmission fidelity, and (iii) cultural variance. We discuss some of the forces that affect these factors. These factors can also shape each other. For example, we provide preliminary evidence that transmission efficiency is affected by sociality—languages with more speakers are more efficient. We argue that collective brains can make each of their constituent cultural brains more innovative. This perspective sheds light on traits, such as IQ, that have been implicated in innovation. A collective brain perspective can help us understand otherwise puzzling findings in the IQ literature, including group differences, heritability differences and the dramatic increase in IQ test scores over time