A Resource-Based View Of International Human Resources: Toward A Framework of Integrative and Creative Capabilities

Drawing on organizational learning and MNC perspectives, we extend the resource-based view to address how international human resource management provides sustainable competitive advantage. We develop a framework that emphasizes and extends traditional assumptions of the resource-based view by identifying the learning capabilities necessary for a complex and changing global environment. These capabilities address how MNCs might both create new HR practices in response to local environments and integrate existing HR practices from other parts of the firm (affiliates, regional headquarters, and global headquarters). In an effort to understand the nature of such capabilities, we discuss aspects of human capital, social capital, and organizational capital that might be linked to their development. Page

Universities, knowledge networks and regional policy

As knowledge becomes an increasingly important part of regional innovation and development processes, the role of universities has come to the fore of regional innovation and economic development policy The objective of this paper is to critically review and assess the structure and function of knowledge networks and modes of engagement between universities and the business community in regional settings and contexts. It is argued that while regional knowledge networks and modes of engagement between universities and the business community are becoming increasingly prevalent, it is often difficult to ascribe investments in knowledge-based infrastructure to improved regional competitiveness. It is concluded that in a globalised knowledge environment the engagement between universities and regional business communities must be based on a mutual understanding of the role of both network and market-based knowledge interactions

The Role of the Internet of Things in Network Resilience

Disasters lead to devastating structural damage not only to buildings and transport infrastructure, but also to other critical infrastructure, such as the power grid and communication backbones. Following such an event, the availability of minimal communication services is however crucial to allow efficient and coordinated disaster response, to enable timely public information, or to provide individuals in need with a default mechanism to post emergency messages. The Internet of Things consists in the massive deployment of heterogeneous devices, most of which battery-powered, and interconnected via wireless network interfaces. Typical IoT communication architectures enables such IoT devices to not only connect to the communication backbone (i.e. the Internet) using an infrastructure-based wireless network paradigm, but also to communicate with one another autonomously, without the help of any infrastructure, using a spontaneous wireless network paradigm. In this paper, we argue that the vast deployment of IoT-enabled devices could bring benefits in terms of data network resilience in face of disaster. Leveraging their spontaneous wireless networking capabilities, IoT devices could enable minimal communication services (e.g. emergency micro-message delivery) while the conventional communication infrastructure is out of service. We identify the main challenges that must be addressed in order to realize this potential in practice. These challenges concern various technical aspects, including physical connectivity requirements, network protocol stack enhancements, data traffic prioritization schemes, as well as social and political aspects