20,602 research outputs found
The Network Economy and Models of the Employment Contract: Psychological, Economic and Legal
The emergence of the so-called Âżnetwork economyÂż and the development of project-basedwork pose a fundamental challenge to established methods of regulating the employmentrelationship. There appears to be an unsatisfied demand for its greater use, especially amongemployers, and it is argued that this may be blocked by the lack of suitable contractual forms,such as those that have underpinned the established open-ended employment relationship.Project-based work seeks to retain some of the open-ended flexibility of the standardemployment relationship in relation to its task content but not its duration. The paper arguesthe success of the standard employment relationship owes much to the articulation of itspsychological, economic/incentive, and legal aspects. As yet, this appears to be lacking formore transient forms of relationship.Network economy, Labor Contracting, Labor Law, Labor-Management Relations
The ânetwork economyâ and models of the employment contract.
The development of the ânetwork economyâ and project-based work challenge established methods of regulating employment relationships. There appears to be an unsatisfied demand for its greater use, especially among employers, and this may be blocked by the lack of suitable contractual forms.. Project-based work seeks to retain some of the open-ended flexibility of the standard employment relationship in relation to its task content but not its duration. The paper argues the success of the standard employment relationship stems from articulation of its psychological, economic/incentive, and legal aspects. As yet, this appears to be lacking for more transient forms of relationship.
Firmsâ Innovative Performance: The Mediating Role of Innovative Collaborations
While existing studies have provided many insightful discussions on the antecedents to innovative collaborations and the benefits of collaborative behavior, few studies have focused on the mediating role of innovative collaborations in enhancing the firmâs technological innovative performance. In this paper, we investigate the mediating role of the firmâs innovative collaborations in the relation between government innovation support and the firmâs product and process innovation intensities. As a mediating factor in the innovation process, innovative collaborations form part of the innovative inputs that contribute to the firmâs product and process innovation intensities. Using arguments derived from the resource-based theory, we found that while receipts of government innovation support help increase the firmâs level of innovative inputs as observed in its collaboration intensity, it is equally important for firms to internalize management practices that encourage maximum leverage of government innovation support for pursuits of innovative collaborations. In a similar vein, while innovative collaborations are necessary for realizing innovative outputs including product and process innovations, it is not a sufficient condition for achieving strong innovative performance. The firmâs internal capabilities as observed in its learning, R&D, resource allocation, manufacturing, marketing, organizing, and strategic planning abilities have a positive influence on the relationship between innovative collaborations and innovative outputs.Innovative Performance; Innovative Collaboration; Firmâs Contextual Factors
Designing Institutional Infrastructure for E-Science
A new generation of information and communication infrastructures, including advanced Internet computing and Grid technologies, promises more direct and shared access to more widely distributed computing resources than was previously possible. Scientific and technological collaboration, consequently, is more and more dependent upon access to, and sharing of digital research data. Thus, the U.S. NSF Directorate committed in 2005 to a major research funding initiative, âCyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discoveryâ. These investments are aimed at enhancement of computer and network technologies, and the training of researchers. Animated by much the same view, the UK e-Science Core Programme has preceded the NSF effort in funding development of an array of open standard middleware platforms, intended to support Grid enabled science and engineering research. This proceeds from the sceptical view that engineering breakthroughs alone will not be enough to achieve the outcomes envisaged. Success in realizing the potential of e-Scienceâthrough the collaborative activities supported by the "cyberinfrastructure," if it is to be achieved, will be the result of a nexus of interrelated social, legal, and technical transformations.e-science, cyberinfrastructure, information sharing, research
The management of trust in PPPs: the case of a post-earthquake psychological rehabilitation program in China
O sistema de saĂșde pĂșblica na RepĂșblica Popular da China tem vindo a ser sujeito a
mudanças significativas. Entre elas, a introdução do sector privado é um fator importante para
o sucesso e desenvolvimento do sistema. A conjugação das exigĂȘncias internas com a situação
internacional aumenta a atenção sobre as Parcerias PĂșblico Privadas (PPP) cujo sucesso e
prossecuçãode objetivos depende não somente da complementaridade dos recursos existentes
quer no sector pĂșblico quer no privado, mas tambĂ©m da confiança mĂștua e do grau dessa
confiança, pelo que, nos Ășltimos anos, o estudo da governação das PPPsse tornou num
assunto de interesse para a academia e para a prĂĄtica.
Quando se discute a cooperação inter-organizacional, as principais linhas de investigação
existentes são a teoria dos custos de transação e o estudo da confiança. A primeira assume que
as pessoas tendem a ser oportunistas, o que aumenta os custos de transação. Contudo, através
de arranjos na estrutura de governação e de mecanismos contratuais, todos os parceiros
podem obter garantias e deste modo reduzir esses custos. Entretanto, os autores que estudam a
confiança, acreditam que ela pode eliminar o oportunismo e aumentar a eficiĂȘncia da
cooperação e indicam um conjunto de fatores que conduzem à confiança. Estas linhas de
investigação tĂȘm porĂ©m alguns constrangimentos e, para os obviar, emergiu recentemente
uma linha de investigação integradora.
Esta tese defende a gestão da confiança e sugere que as PPPs deverão realçar a fiabilidade dos
parceiros e também o facto de a confiança provir de uma boa gestão, deixando de enfatizar os
custos de transação. Em comparação com o estudo da confiança em sentido estrito, a gestão
da confiança valoriza as açÔes positivas dos parceiros em detrimento da boa vontade da sua
motivação intrĂnseca, evitando deste modo eventuais insuficiĂȘncias. No enquadramento
teĂłrico a tese analisa a influĂȘncia de antecedentes tais como os ativos especĂficos de
relacionamento, a reputação da empresa ou a comunicação sobre confiança. Analisa também a
influĂȘncia da confiança nas variĂĄveis consequentesincluindo o desempenho, envolvimento e
relaçÔes de longo prazo e propondo um modelo teórico para o desenvolvimento da confiança
mĂștua nas PPPs.
Tendo como objeto de estudo uma situação de reabilitação psicológica pós terramoto na
China, a tese verifica a relação estrutural entre antecedentes e a confiança assim como a
relação estrutural entre a confiança e os efeitos da cooperação através de casos de estudo e
anĂĄlise estatĂstica. PropĂ”e hipĂłteses sobre a relação entre cada antecedente e a confiança e
sobre a relação entre a confiança e efeitos cooperativos. A tese discorre ainda sobre o
significado dos resultados para a academia e para a prĂĄtica. Os resultados estatĂsticos indicam
que a arquitetura de gestão da confiança é lógica, apoiada empiricamente e explicada de uma
forma adequada. Teoricamente a tese não propÔe somente uma arquitetura sistemåtica de
gestĂŁo mas tambĂ©m confirma influĂȘncias intermediĂĄrias de fatores psicolĂłgicos na gestĂŁo.
Para a prĂĄtica a tese fornece referĂȘncias para relaçÔes de risco, determinação da intensidade da
gestão e o estabelecimento de formas de cooperação baseadas na confiança, sugerindo futuros
estudos sobre riscos inerentes ao estabelecimento de relaçÔes e sobre a condução de parcerias
dinĂąmicas.China's public health sector is undergoing significant changes. Introducing private sector into
the medical and health system is an important factor to the success and development of
medical and health undertaking. As domestic demands intermingle with the international
situation, increasing attention is paid to public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the public health
sector. The success of PPPs and the accomplishment of the expected targets depend not only
on technological and resource complementarity between the public and the private sectors but
also on mutual confidence and the degree of trust. Thus the governance of such partnerships
has become a subject valued by the academic and practitioner circles.
As to the discussion on inter-organizational cooperation, major research orientations fall into
two types: transaction cost theory and the study of trust. Transaction cost theory assumes that
people tend to be opportunistic, which increases transaction costs. Through arrangements of
governance structure and contract mechanisms, all partners can get guarantee and reduce
transaction costs. The study of trust believes that trust can suppress opportunism and enhance
the efficiency of the cooperation, and points out a number of factors leading to trust. However,
both of the two research orientations have their own limitations and a merging trend has
emerged in recent years.
This thesis proposes the view of trust management and suggests that PPPs shall stress whether
a partner is reliable and whether trust can arise from proper management rather than
emphasize transaction costs. Compared with the study of trust, trust management values
positive actions of partners rather than the goodwill of partners' intrinsic motivation so that it
can avoid insufficiency of manageability and attribution errors in the study of trust. On the
basis of theoretical study, the thesis analyses the influence of such antecedents as relationship
specific assets, corporate reputation and communication on trust and the influence of trust on
consequential variables like performance, commitment and long-term relationship, and then
proposes a theoretical model of mutual trust in PPPs, the hypothetical relationship between
antecedents and trust, and the hypothetical relationship between consequential variables and
trust.
With post-earthquake psychological rehabilitation as the empirical object, the thesis verifies
the structural relationship between antecedents and trust and the structural relationship
between trust and cooperation effects through a case study and statistical analysis. It
formulates hypotheses on the relationship between each antecedent and trust and hypotheses
on the relationship between trust and cooperation effects, and discourses on the theoretical
and practical significance and implications of the research findings. The statistical results
indicate that the architecture of trust management is logically reasonable, empirically
supported, and considerably applicable. Theoretically, the thesis not only proposes a
systematic management architecture but also confirms the intermediary influences of
psychological factors on management; practically, the thesis provides reference for diagnosis
of relationship risks, determination of management intensity and establishment of cooperation
confidence. It is suggested that future studies be carried out on connotations of relationship
risks, optimal management intensity, management mechanism portfolio, gap of psychological
state, partnership perspective and dynamic development of partnerships
TOWARDS INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURES FOR E-SCIENCE: The Scope of the Challenge
The three-fold purpose of this Report to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Research Councils (UK) is to: âą articulate the nature and significance of the non-technological issues that will bear on the practical effectiveness of the hardware and software infrastructures that are being created to enable collaborations in e- Science; âą characterise succinctly the fundamental sources of the organisational and institutional challenges that need to be addressed in regard to defining terms, rights and responsibilities of the collaborating parties, and to illustrate these by reference to the limited experience gained to date in regard to intellectual property, liability, privacy, and security and competition policy issues affecting scientific research organisations; and âą propose approaches for arriving at institutional mechanisms whose establishment would generate workable, specific arrangements facilitating collaboration in e-Science; and, that also might serve to meet similar needs in other spheres such as e- Learning, e-Government, e-Commerce, e-Healthcare. In carrying out these tasks, the report examines developments in enhanced computer-mediated telecommunication networks and digital information technologies, and recent advances in technologies of collaboration. It considers the economic and legal aspects of scientific collaboration, with attention to interactions between formal contracting and 'private ordering' arrangements that rest upon research community norms. It offers definitions of e-Science, virtual laboratories, collaboratories, and develops a taxonomy of collaborative e-Science activities which is implemented to classify British e-Science pilot projects and contrast these with US collaboratory projects funded during the 1990s. The approach to facilitating inter-organizational participation in collaborative projects rests upon the development of a modular structure of contractual clauses that permit flexibility and experience-based learning.
Boundary spanning in a for-profit research lab: An exploration of the interface between commerce and academe
In innovative industries, private-sector companies increasingly are participants in open communities of science and technology. To participate in the system of exchange in such communities, firms often publicly disclose what would otherwise remain private discoveries. In a quantitative case study of one firm in the biopharmaceutical sector, we explore the consequences of scientific publication-an instance of public disclosure-for a core set of activities within the firm. Specifically, we link publications to human capital management practices, showing that scientists' bonuses and the allocation of managerial attention are tied to individuals' publications. Using a unique electronic mail dataset, we find that researchers within the firm who author publications are much better connected to external (to the company) members of the scientific community. This result directly links publishing to current understandings of absorptive capacity. In an unanticipated finding, however, our analysis raises the possibility that the company's most prolific publishers begin to migrate to the periphery of the intra-firm social network, which may occur because these individuals' strong external relationships induce them to reorient their focus to a community of scientists beyond the firm's boundary.
Mechanisms Driving Digital New Venture Creation & Performance: An Insider Action Research Study of Pure Digital Entrepreneurship in EdTech
Digitisation has ushered in a new era of value creation where cross border data flows generate more economic value than traditional flows of goods. The powerful new combination of digital and traditional forms of innovation has seen several new industries branded with a âtechâ suffix. In the education technology sector (EdTech), which is the industry context of this research, digitisation is driving double-digit growth into a projected $240 billion industry by 2021. Yet, despite its contemporary significance, the field of entrepreneurship has paid little attention to the phenomenon of digital entrepreneurship. As several scholars observe, digitisation challenges core organising axioms of entrepreneurship, with significant implications for the new venture creation process in new sectors such as EdTech. New venture creation no longer appears to follow discrete and linear models of innovation, as spatial and temporal boundaries get compressed. Given the paradigmatic shift, this study investigates three interrelated themes. Firstly, it seeks to determine how a Pure Digital Entrepreneurship (PDE) process develops over time; and more importantly, how the journey challenges extant assumptions of the entrepreneurial process. Secondly, it strives to identify and theorise the deep structures which underlie the PDE process through mechanism-based explanations. Consequently, the study also seeks to determine the causal pathways and enablers which overtly or covertly interrelate to power new venture emergence and performance. Thirdly, it aims to offer practical guidelines for nurturing the growth of PDE ventures, and for the development of supportive ecosystems. To meet the stated objectives, this study utilises an Insider Action Research (IAR) approach to inquiry, which incorporates reflective practice, collaborative inquiry and design research for third-person knowledge production. This three-pronged approach to inquiry allows for the enactment of a PDE journey in real-time, while acquiring a holistic narrative in the âswampy lowlandsâ of new venture creation. The findings indicate that the PDE process is differentiated by the centrality of digital artifacts in new venture ideas, which in turn result in less-bounded processes that deliver temporal efficiencies â hence, the shorter new venture creation processes than in traditional forms of entrepreneurship. Further, PDE action is defined by two interrelated events â digital product development and digital growth marketing. These events are characterised by the constant forking, merging and termination of diverse activities. Secondly, concurrent enactment and piecemeal co-creation were found to be consequential mechanisms driving temporal efficiencies in digital product development. Meanwhile, data-driven operation and flexibility combine in digital growth marketing, to form higher order mechanisms which considerably reduce the levels of task-specific and outcome uncertainties. Finally, the study finds that digital growth marketing is differentiated from traditional marketing by the critical role of algorithmic agencies in their capacity as gatekeepers. Thus, unlike traditional marketing, which emphasises customer sovereignty, digital growth marketing involves a dual focus on the needs of human and algorithmic stakeholders. Based on the findings, this research develops a pragmatic model of pure digital new venture creation and suggests critical policy guidelines for nurturing the growth of PDE ventures and ecosystems
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